Enigma
by Pandiichan
Summary: Done! Her uncle is missing, his facility was raided. That traitor used her as a DNA dump! She wasn't sure who she was anymore. Human? Experiment? 001 on her arm must've meant she was the first of her kind, but if that was true then how could they be real?
1. Chapter 1

Enigma

"…and in hypothetical transfusion you'd want to make sure the ratio of red cells at any given time is still between forty and forty-five percent, at least for a normal case." Rilien Spector gestured, his thick black hair falling in sloppy tendrils before his black eyes as he pointed to the computer screen and showed his niece the various programs up and monitoring Wireit's latest project: fully functional synthetic blood. Rilien was merely training and getting Maeleyn, his niece, to think in the technical terms Columbia would require since she was so adamant on going there. Where better to teach her than his lab that produced annually for one of _the _biggest medical conventions in the world? Dr. Spector smiled as he saw his niece's loopy, neat scribble and pondered on what to have her translate next, acting as if she were doing a real summation that would go into a medical journal. Maeleyn pursed her lips, zipping up her black hoodie a fraction; her uncle's lab was on the lowest floor of the Wireit facility and his lab was usually chilly given the fact he dealt intensely in blood work.

Adjacent from the large white gloss counter they occupied with a film of spread papers, two computers, and various other technical equipment he owned an islet sat budding with full red vials, all different versions of his synthetic blood. They'd tweaked for every good possibility they could think of; extra monocytes, extra anti-fibrin material, extra white cells, and even hybrids such as white cell bloated monocytes! It was a large investment, and so far the DNA bonding was good, the bases were linking as they would in regular human genes. Maeleyn was highly awed by her uncle's biochemical skill; she could be looking at the very project that would eliminate the thought of death beds! Rilien was even so neat and tidy as to have the synthetic blood filed by type; her longwinded uncle kept the B positive rack close…it was their blood type.

Rilien took a moment of reflection as he looked upon his niece. At first glance, and knowing his own blood, she was most of her father. She had her mother's hair though, and the shape of her mother's face. Father's eyes and girlish lips. _Serene…God rest your soul. I wish you could see Mae…she's changing things. Helping me change things._ the scientist gave a short sigh and tapped his chin. "Anyways, sorry about the absence, Mae, let's tune back in, shall we?" Rilien Spector had moved to Manhattan and lived their nearly longer than he had in Rhode Island where Maeleyn's father, and even Maeleyn herself, had originated. Manhattan wasn't really safe, but it was Keir's demand that when he go away on a ship his daughter went directly to his brother, and here she stood helping him determine the health-based fate of those who had little faith left in medicine.

"Now our generic sample is intended for those that have just lost large amount of blood is a bit off from the traditional mix of cells, plasma, nutrients, hormones, and clotting agents. First off, it's void of materials the body needs to flush because if you're in need of medical attention the last thing you want to do is flush anything out of your system, provided that you don't have a poison in you. Conversely, you want something that will keep you healthy long enough to get proper treatment. RDBL001 has a high percentage of nutrients and anti-fibrin agents so there's no risk of clotting or collision as it begins to ride the pathways and circulate in the body. I'd estimate the mix to be around sixty-seven percent nutrients, eleven percent white blood cells, ten percent plasma, eight percent water, and four percent macrophages." he pulled up the breakdown of RDBL001 and showed her a computer image of a rotating vial that composed the blood bag visible in the cooler next to them on the counter, making the picture spin and rattle off the labels, percentages, and functions.

"So, Maeleyn, question time!" Maeleyn gave a small smile. Grant it she was going to a writing based college and not a medical based college she nonetheless took the 'fun' Rilien found in his work and attempted to think as erratically and brilliantly as he did. "How do we keep the blood successfully flowing, based on its composition?" that was easy, actually. If it was only eight percent water out of the whole one hundred percent it takes to make something, the liquid count needed to be up.

"You need to keep a steady liquid intake, maybe an IV drip?" she nibbled the bottom of her lip, shaking her black hair out of her grey eyes. Rilien smiled, patted her head, and nodded.

"Indeed," he concurred, abandoning the desk where all of his work lay as Maeleyn finished up the summation and walked over to his synthetic human dummies. These dummies were the closest thing he could get to ailing people without having to use real humans; he and another up-and-coming scientist had made them a year or two back. Rilien didn't have the heart to test on real people until he knew it was full-proof, and so he babied his dummies. To his surprise, dummy three began to beep as the machine showed the deteriorating state of the deadly prognosis. The dummy was being cured! "Maeleyn! Maeleyn!" Rilien was all beside himself, "Come, come look dear! Look at what science has done!" he chatted excitedly, popping open the small storage area near the end of the bed to see what blood version had ended up in the IV bag.

"Well," grinned Rilien, "we know RDBL003 works. That was the one we gorged with thirty-five percent white cell filled monocytes, thirty-five percent red blood cells, fifteen percent plasma and fifteen percent nutrient intake."

"And what condition did it cure?" asked Maeleyn curiously, reading the 'stats' for the dummy.

"It cured Carl, here," Rilien had a habit of naming his dummies and talking to them like they were biotic, just as Dr. Mallard did to his deceased patients on _NCIS_. He patted the dummy's out jutting leg and rifled through the clipboard to check just what it was he'd given the dummy to simulate. "…of tuberculosis." said the scientist matter-of-factly, grinning widely. Maeleyn smiled, too. Good for him. Rilien tucked her fake summation in his folder to review it later, watching his children brew in their safe, chilly nests and slots, checking on his other 'patients' as he went.

They both jumped; unaware that Chaplin was due to pay them a visit today as the young scientist circled around the islet and peered curiously into the cooler on the counter. The red-haired prodigy had actually helped Rilien develop the dummies, and, once upon a time had been his intern. "Dr. Spector." remembering his place, his old mentor, Chaplin shook the forty-two year old's hand. "Maeleyn." the two knew very little of each other, and Maeleyn liked to reserve her handshakes for the people that earned them. Chaplin smiled regardless, and began chatting with Rilien (much to Maeleyn's chagrin) about his latest developments and had way too many inquiries about the synthetic blood for her liking. Rilien, though, bless her uncle, was much too kind to deny anyone to see or offer their thought on his work.

Chaplin rubbed her wrong, for whatever reason, and she watched him with the ferocity of a tigress standing between danger and her child. His hands floated and traced the vials in a very weird way. "Do they smell?" she heard him ask her uncle and Rilien grabbed the nearest vial off the table, a B blood sample, and popped it open, waving it under his nose. "Odd," he remarked, "scentless." Rilien merely laughed at him as Chaplin returned curiously to the blood bag sitting atop an ice-filled cooler.

He poked the bag interestedly, wondering if synthetic blood gave the same liquidy, squishy motions a regular bag would if he poked it. Unbeknownst to either Spector he had a micro-needle on his left-hand index finger. Gradually, little by little, he was injecting the various blood samples with animal DNA as he'd been asked. It was Rilien's own fault; he'd refused to do the job himself. Poor man…brilliant man, but a poor man. Stupid man.

What bi-animal concentration he'd put in the B positive blood sack he didn't know. Every time he reached in his pocket, pulling out his phone to check the time, a different head to the needle was on and another infusion occurred. Maeleyn looked up, as did Rilien and Chaplin. There was an odd rumbling coming from above. An explosive detonated on the second floor, leaving a gaping hole above their heads that rained debris and called up horrible dusty conditions impossible to swat away as foreign black-clad people dropped down to stare at them behind mesh-eyed masks. Rilien, though shocked, quickly recovered, "Chaplin! Get her out of here, and take some samples with you!" he did _not _want these people getting his work!

Wasting no time Chaplin grabbed Maeleyn's hand and snatched up the cooler, hearing it lock shut as he took off in a swift stride ducking around the men and exiting to the corridor that would connect to the main platform and the front doors. "Uncle Rilien!" Maeleyn cried out, distressed and heart beating frantically as she realized the shrill fear in her echoing voice. "Who are they? Those people?" she demanded, trying to stop Chaplin's running momentum, struggling to free herself.

"Retrievers," he breathed, slipping out the front doors and into the sunshine, still hiding behind the grand pillars holding the large stone arc up, being careful of any potential interceptors in the surrounding plot of bottom-fenced trees. "They want your uncle's work. He's refused to merge or sell to any other company so, naturally, they're taking what they want by force."

"WHO?" Maeleyn yowled again, rage filling her form. The tanned skin across her knuckles stretched thin as she balled her fist. This had something to do with Chaplin and she'd bet any money she had on it. Just as she drew her arm back to deck the ugly glasses off his face a black-clad man slithered from behind the next pillar. Maeleyn felt a sharp bite in her neck and cursed, ripping out a little dart.

Her vision slowly began to blur; Chaplin danced in and out of grainy focus as he attempted to manhandle her assailant, soon he crumbled on the ground…about the same time she had to sink to her knees to avoid the tilt-a-whirl the earth had become. His glasses were broken, and Chaplin appeared to be unconscious. The Foot ninja waited until the girl was completely unconscious, slumped against the pillar, before shouldering her and the cooler, nudging Chaplin with his foot. "Get up," he said, "we have her."

"And we have him." five more Foot members dragged a spitting, bloodied Rilien with them and made the scientist look at his niece.

"You bastards!" he cried, "you said you wouldn't do this!"

"The master feels you need to learn the consequences of your actions." said a second Foot soldier holding him, storing the two in a large van painted to look like a tree trimming business shortly before pulling out of the parking lot.

"And just what are my 'consequences'?" dared ask Rilien as he spat at Chaplin from his seat behind the driver of the van; trying his best to peer in the very back of the vehicle where he could hear the rattling and shifting of metallic instruments.

"Don't know," he heard Chaplin murmur, "we'll see when she wakes up." Rilien's eyes grew wide as he saw Chaplin systematically squeezing the blood bag in rhythm, an IV line funneling into his niece's upturned arm and a very blue, bruised vein. Good god…

Just what was he getting into? What had he done? What were they doing? Who was their 'master'? More importantly, what did they want synthetic blood for?


	2. Chapter 2

Enigma

**AN: Wow…I was gone for a whole week in Orlando and came back to quite the number of Fanfiction reviews/notices for various stories and I was impressed. I haven't had traffic like this since the LeBeau story! Thanks especially to **Candlelit1 **and **animecrazygirl1 **for favoring the story or putting it on the alert list. No reviews as of yet and that's fine, at least I know people are reading it! I am extremely happy so I'm updating :). I'm also updating my stories on Shell Shock at relatively the same time so I'll be going back and forth. Shell Shock is another TMNT site and you can find it here: **. **I am NOT the owner of that site and I claim no affiliation via another website nor am I responsible for any of the content of it except on my account (Pandiichan) which has been edited with proper warnings. While I'm doing a disclaimer might I also add-as all authoresses and authors of the TMNT genre know and frequently say- I do not own the rights to TMNT or any official TMNT characters. I am using Maeleyn. TMNT and all related characters belong to Nickelodeon. **

"Get up. We have a surprise for you!" Rilien groaned. He wasn't sure how long he'd been here; in this place? Was the destruction of Wireit yesterday or a week ago? His memory was so hazy but the burning pain of computer lights was easy to recall, as it gave him intense migraines…the scientist could only remember Chaplin squeezing the contents of a crimson bag into his niece's arm before waking up and staring at his grey techno-filled prison for who knew how many days. Maeleyn…her blood…how would that go? The blood hadn't been tested on a _healthy _person because it wasn't developed for a _healthy_ person. So many questions buzzed in his head; would the synthetic blood replace her natural blood, would it fuse, would it bond, would her natural white blood cells attack the 'foreign' new blood bodies and kill her from the inside out? Rilien felt sick thinking about the last horror and gave a sharp growl of pain as the Foot duo that had apprehended him showed their dislike for his aloof dawdling. He was made to stand behind a large glass pane filled with bulletproof glass, staring straight into the "lion's den" of this hell hole. A laboratory.

"What does this have to do with-MAELEYN?" switching in a blink from pissy and tired, over worked and woozy, to livid and awake he banged helplessly on the glass. He remembered that African four-eyes now…yes…yes it was all coming back now. Stockman…that name sounded right in his mind, even though it might be wrong. Once upon a time Rilien himself had admired this genius of robotics but when he started discussing intensely of A.I., "artificial intelligence" most companies backed out on their offers. This man was reaching for something much too far away to get in this century, if not the next three. He'd shown particular interest in Rilien's theory of formulating functioning synthetic blood, for whatever reason.

All the Spector man could remember was insane talks of space travel and aliens. 'Hypothetically' was the favored word whenever the two met. Needless to say, Rilien felt he couldn't cater to this gentleman and declined like the rest of the science world. Now he knew his choice was more than wise, but still felt helpless as the Foot guards that had been handling him like a true slave held him in an iron vice and made him gaze upon the asparagus green creature trying to twist out of the gurney. "Your consequence has turned out fortuitous…" the one on his left noted and Rilien immediately felt his esophagus shorten without prompting. Maeleyn's uncle stared weakly at the scene, unable to hear his niece, unable to know what Stockman was talking to her about as he held the needle steady on her right shoulder.

Rilien felt vomit climb his throat again. He felt so dizzy and weak. Stupid, dizzy, and weak. Everythin g was quiet on the other side of the glass, but the shattering of Rilien's mental health, his hope, echoed quite loudly, though no one bothered to listen. His kin, his little niece that was more of a daughter to him, was being changed before his eyes. The gorgeous tanned skin most any teenager would covet looked consumed by some odd fungus or gangrene. It also appeared as if she was suffering from gout…but he could just be seeing things and fearing for the worst. Stockman pulled away at last, causing the gurney to raise itself and stand erect so those behind the glass could finally see the result.

He felt his heart shatter and the tears began to slip down his face. Rilien had failed Serene, his brother, and Maeleyn. Crying from a totally different matter, or maybe for both of them, Rilien was relieved to see Maeleyn coherent enough to lock eyes with him despite the tears streaming down her now green cheeks. They'd mutated her with animal DNA. His synthetic blood had been the pathway…the carrier for their newfound disease. A deep, inerasable shame chilled him; he'd had one of his greatest works defamed and used for someone else's sick idea of fun and curiosity.

If he had a vat of oil to boil himself in or a knife, a needle…he'd end it. He was so ashamed. Science had made his niece what she was. His science, his work. He'd ruined her. Maeleyn's eyes, to his relief, were still the same dark gray color but her complexion and texture had completely changed. It looked as if the animal DNA was more prominent in her appearance, and she'd merely kept the posture and mannerisms, habits, of a human being. Even from his sick front row seat behind the glass he could see the hardened almost pebble-like pores near her shoulders becoming more and more like scales.

She looked to be more turtle than anything, he realized, squinting his eyes as he tried to differentiate the colored caramel patches over her breasts and stomach…but her covered areas by what he assumed to be female turtle plastron wasn't glossy or reflecting light as calcified items would show dimensionally in bright conditions. Her tail was much too long, too, and it was given its own individual strap to be contained in. Her markings were far too odd for a turtle. Maeleyn had a distinctive diamond patch of yellow skin with the northern most point starting between the valley of her breasts, going outward maybe an inch, inch and a half, to either side of her belly button before ending in the southern point near hip stripes perfectly highlighting the hip bones closely set in the human like structure she maintained.

Stockman dared open his computerized laboratory door and Rilien went rabid again, restrained by the two Foot guards. "Foot Tech Ninja, Rilien. My own invention. Increased strength, speed, and even some invisibility capabilities thrown in. Genius, isn't it? But you, like so many, failed to see the genius of Baxter Stockman."

"Genius? _Genius_?" Rilien could nearly laugh, and he was beginning to think he was some sort of demented for considering what seemed to be a natural sarcastic response. "You're a goddamned butchering sadist, Stockman! You're no man of science, you're no genius! You're just some scared little shit weaseling your way back into the works, or so it looks." sneered Rilien as he looked at the deformed African American who had one metallic, robotic hand, a nasty scar over one of his eyes and an eye patch to hide what could very well be an empty socket. This was obviously some last stitch effort to save his own life, or prove his worth to his 'master'. There was no doubt in Rilien's mind he was working for the same 'master' as the Foot Ninjas and even Chaplin was when they were apprehended.

"I'm no genius?" Stockman repeated curiously, a look of sheer disbelief and humor on his face. "If I'm no genius, Rilien, how is it I've come to make a devastating neurological serum based off of your synthetic blood and convert it into a drinkable substance?"

"What?" asked the other scientist incredulously. Although the focused Foot guards of Rilien Spector were present and listening, keeping their objective of containing the enemy scientist firmly in their grasps they had no idea what Stockman was talking about.

"Why do you think you can't remember anything that's happened since yesterday? Why do you think you're all hazy. Combined with our latest project…" he gestured to Maeleyn in her unconscious state slumped in the gurney, "…I have made a serum that affects the brain, leading to intense amnesiac instances. After a little bit of tweaking I'll be able to make even more serums for the various types of amnesia and eventually my goal will be met."

"And what is your goal?" Rilien spat curiously, wanting nothing more than to break the harsh hold on his own body and beat the smug, vile bastard down with his own hands.

"Complete and total memory loss. Tabula rasa. Essentially a blank slate, a new human to shape however I or my superiors see fit. Give me a few days and we'll see if it works. I think Maeleyn would make a fantastic assassin, wouldn't you? She has background knowledge of government training from her father, anyways. Isn't that right?"

"You leave my brother out of this and you lay another fucking finger on my niece and you'll lose you're other hand! Courtesy of me!" an evil chuckle cut off what retort Baxter Stockman had planned for his nemesis.

"Your hatred for Stockman, the primal desire to see him perish for his wrongdoings may be what keeps you alive." mused the iron-clad figure. Rilien turned his deadly gaze to the figure and stopped what nasty verbal jabbing he had in mind for this fellow, too. He reeked of blood, death, rage, and outright evil. "I am their master," he said, "you will call me the Shredder or master. You will obey or you will suffer the consequences. Heed my words, for I do not repeat myself." he cast his red eyes to Stockman next. "And if it isn't evident from Stockman I do not tolerate failure, either, so be efficient."

"Let me guess," Rilien was so pissed off he was literally unable to cork his mouth for the benefit. The image of his niece's asparagus green arm painted with twisted rivulets of sluggish blood oozing from **001 **tattooed on her arm told him to fight back. Fight for her freedom, fight for what they did to her. "Be efficient or suffer the consequences?" his smart mouth was rewarded with a particularly stinging backhand. Only when he saw the crimson tipped gauntlet did he feel the blood and burn on his own face.

"Take Spector away, send him to work immediately!" demanded the Shredder as he waved the two Foot Tech Ninjas away with an angry growl. He glowered at Stockman which prompted the scientist to lead him into the room where the newly made female turtle was still unconscious and upright in the gurney. "Explain this!" used to the sharp, barking orders Stockman nonetheless flinched, especially at the sight of crimson on his boss' gauntlet. It reminded him of his failures, and he turned angry, hard brown eyes to Maeleyn. She better work or there'd be hell to pay on her part…after his got over, if he failed, Stockman thought, cocky about his own skill despite his record with the Shredder.

"After Chaplin staged the raid on the Wireit facility he took with him a specimen for me to test and the instrument in which to test with." he gestured to the empty blood bag. "Maeleyn…**001**'s uncle has been working on a synthetic blood to create good health in the ailing. I modify it and mix it with the animal DNA you want and soon we'll have a mutant army to get rid of those lousy turtle pests!" Shredder crossed his arms. This may have promise. The genetic experiments they'd tried to far hadn't turned out too well, but using real blood from both a human and an animal instead of just whipping up a mutagen to change them seemed more effective even in logic.

"So you want to create _more _turtles to get rid of the ones that have caused the Foot and I so much grief and dishonor?" the bite and sarcasm in his voice made Stockman close his opening mouth. He was thinking of a reply.

"B-but she's no ordinary turtle! She's a _female _turtle. Like it or not she and they have the baser instincts of the animal they are. She'd find them nearly subconsciously!" Stockman claimed, beginning to sweat lightly. "And besides," added the genius, "she's a _hybrid_." the Shredder paused at the threshold of the laboratory.

"A hybrid?"

"Yes! Every creature we're in the process of making has a dual set of animal genes."

"And what are hers?"

"We've yet to find out. She won't be ready for testing at least until tomorrow. Tonight is her trial. If her body accepts the gene bonding we can test and say she's a sturdy prototype, but if not…well, we'll just make **002** to compensate."

"Interesting. You'd best hope this doesn't fail, Stockman."

* * *

"…And unfortunately we've no suspects in the bombing of the Wireit corporation but those who've survived the blast have been placed in intensive care. A mass memorial service will be held next Friday in honor of those who lost their lives. Among them is suspected to be Rilien Spector and his eighteen year old niece Maeleyn Spector who was intending to go to Columbia to major in English this year." the reporter, Carla Rodriguez summarized and every time Don saw an update on the story he gave a heavy heartbroken sigh. Wireit had been such a beautiful delivering company; the models, technology and ideas never ceased to amaze him. What was even more amazing and perhaps a little rare was that this business was strictly for healthcare and nothing else. Now it was just a pile of smoking rubble that had been extinguished and pillaged earlier yesterday afternoon.

"What a shame," the techno geek found himself mourning out loud, "all that technology gone up in flames. They really had something, too."

"Yeah," snorted Raph, "the amazing ability to lose everyone's attention span in five seconds." his little brother gave him a light glare. It's not like Donnie went around poking his beak into Raphael's preferred interests! How rude, but how Raph like. Don just ignored him after he watched his brother idly stick the littlest bit of sai in his mouth for the metallic taste. After a commercial for Olive Garden, Best Buy, and Hillshire Farms the banner and trumpeting signaling a news update occurred. Donatello, delighted at the sound, snatched the remote from Mikey's creeping hand before he could blink.

"Ladies and gentleman interesting news here, interesting news. Once again I am Carla Rodriguez and astonishingly the boutique across the street from Wireit has handed over footage that shows our suspected missing persons could possibly still be alive. Here's the footage." a tape played, a black and white thing with no sound, but the turtles froze and eyed the TV with particular dislike as they saw all too familiar uniforms throwing an unconscious girl and a man who Donnie identified as Rilien Spector in the back of the van. "Now here's the woman that handed over that tape…" the extra noise faded from their minds as they began to wonder what the Foot would want to seize and raid the facility for. They had Stockman and Chaplin building their defenses, why raid a scientific healthcare company?

"It doesn't make any sense…" Donnie shook his head as he moved to his computer, pulling up various papers and documents published under Rilien's name. "He's been working on a synthetic blood formula for a while but I don't see why the Foot would need it. They're all perfectly healthy…"

"Only 'cuz they're smart enough to stay away after we whip 'em." Raphael pointed out, lounging on the back of Donatello's computer chair with folded arms which caused the genius' perch to raise and soon steady as it grew accustomed to the extra weight. Leo and Mikey were more or less looking at the pictures hiding in the scientific babble.

"Maybe Shredder's alien blood is going bad and he needs a new life force?" Mikey offered, hoping to turn the genius onto some realization. "It's sort of like zombies and their unexplainable need to eat brains but it's the Shredder. And blood." Donnie gave him a flat look and Mikey held up his hands in defense of himself. He was trying!

"Well whatever it is," Donnie assured, sorting through the documents and beginning to read them over, "it isn't good. I guarantee we'll see results of it very soon."

"Makes you wonder what it is…" Leo whispered, knowing there was no depth the Shredder wouldn't sink to in order to annihilate them.

"Maybe he's going to tweak the water or get a crackpot doctor to inject the citizens of Manhattan with evil turtle-hating zombie blood!" Mikey gushed from the couch. Donnie finally swiveled in his chair, having enough of the nonsense. His brother clearly wasn't grasping the gravity of what could be loads of synthetic blood and the Foot capturing a lead scientist from the facility.

"Mikey quit making this like one of your comic books. We'll need to think seriously if we want to have a future. I'd bet you the next eighteen pizzas we eat that whatever the Foot is up to it's for us." Mikey grinned.

" Way to sound like Leo, Don. Eighteen you say? Bro that sounds-"

"Don't make me hit you. Please don't. I'm comfortable…"

"Is that you're way of saying you don't like sounding like me?" Leo asked curiously, a hint of amusement in his face. Being the older brother was funny. He got to see his little brothers squirm whenever he had dirt on them, though he never used it unless he thought their activities were going against their health or training commitments. Don quickly turned back around to face the computer.

"Please Leo, don't interrupt me. I'm working."

* * *

The room was dark and all lights were off, leaving her feeling scared and senseless. Maeleyn gave a small whimper of pain as she tried to move her right arm. Fiery sensations and pain, air, shuttled up her body like pins and needles one felt with a numb foot. She felt like crying again, remembering the sheer pain of the brand they'd put on her body…but she couldn't cry. That's what weaklings did! Maeleyn was strong!

But then again…she had cried. When she saw Uncle Rilien breakdown she'd lost it too. He was crying for her, at seeing her, and she was crying because she was in pain and confused. Where was she? All she remembered was Chaplin sticking something in her arm.

Maeleyn tried to lift that arm, feeling the sting and bite of the Chaplin sticking the object in her arm from her memories. Her body was heavy, and she found it took too much energy to even lift her head. Everything hurt. She felt like whining in the way she usually would when getting her period but decided against it, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the dark. Strapped to the same gurney she'd been branded in Maeleyn felt a small tear trickle from her eyes. Where was she? Why her?

What happened? "Shh…" she would've jumped but her body felt heavier than cement blocks. A fleshy hand wiped away her tears and she realized the hand was warm. Maybe they'd been keeping her in a cold place, or the air conditioner ran at night and they weren't giving her a blanket. "Maeleyn, it's okay. It's me, uncle Rilien." the voice whispered, and she smelled the familiar scent of his Old Spice products. Maeleyn wanted to cry, hug him and hold onto him…she wanted to beg him to wake her up from this bad dream.

"They sent me to check on you. I'm glad to see you've pulled through. Oh Mae I love you. So much…so very, very much." he kissed her head and she felt another tear slip. Why did he sound so sad? "You've been given a heavy sedative," Rilien explained after trying to see his niece talk to him. "It'll wear off by morning. I love you, sweetheart. And I hope you'll like going for a swim, too. It'll be something nice for you." Maeleyn would've questioned his odd talk but let it slide; it wasn't as if she could form the words anyways.

"Go to sleep, sweetheart. We'll be out of this before you know it. Or at least you will be…" Rilien promised before kissing her brow and combing her hair back away from her face. It had grown about four inches as the rest of her body changed and mutated with the sudden influx of gestation-based mutated cells. However sick this process was, the overall plan, there really was some magnificent science behind the horror. Her sedative resumed its rhythmic drip and Maeleyn shut her eyes softly after fighting with her body for five minutes. She was tired, so tired. When she woke up maybe she could write it off as a dream…

The pain was dull but still somewhat fresh when she woke the next morning. Carefully and slowly rotating her tattooed arm Maeleyn winced. Her free conditions made her look alive. The gurney no longer had its straps deployed to hold her! Chains, instead, she realized as she heard the clinking, scraping sound of them against her 'bed'. Still, somewhere in the asshole-filled hell hole someone had been nice enough to give her chains with slack, and she found she could stand. Maeleyn hadn't bothered to look at herself, or even down, as she thought of home and her old, fond routine of swinging her legs over the side of her bed and stepping onto the ground for the first time in a new day.

Unable to help herself, she screamed. Maeleyn, instead of stepping on her bedroom floor like she knew she wouldn't, had stepped on four pale, withered human fingers. The foot that had stepped on them was large and green, too, with two toes. As was her other foot. Her six missing toes were found at the foot of her gurney. She screamed again.


	3. Chapter 3

Enigma

**AN: A very big, grateful thank you to **FeatherGirl13 **for the review on the previous chapter, it made me happy! To** FeatherGirl13**: this chapter is dedicated to you then, isn't it? I'll always write a chapter for my reviewers and reader's in mind but a special thanks will always be given to the ones that take the time to review :D. Also, I read your story when you made a slight mention of it in the review, I think it has potential. **

Maeleyn looked like a deer caught in the headlights when the computerized door to her observation room opened up with a loud hiss. Instantly her uncle, Chaplin, and three Foot Tech Ninjas were flooding into her room, the Foot Tech Ninjas taking a protective stance before the door and Rilien the only one brave enough to approach the new her. Chaplin was more or less observing and recording on the clipboard he'd brought in with him. "What's wrong? Maeleyn, are you-my god…" Rilien felt dizzy as he whipped his head sharply from his niece to look at the ground where her fingers and toes lay. Were those _her_ fingers?

He could almost say they were, but they had lost their tan color from being separated from the main body so long and yet as he looked at her now, with her three slender, new fingers he knew those empty slots of skin between them were where the old fingers had once been attached. Rilien couldn't deny he was astounded by the fact no gaping scar or hanging thread of skin remained to hint at her missing human fingers; quite the opposite the green hands were very smooth, asparagus green and looked unfazed by the loss of what was once natural body parts. "Interesting…" Rilien, to his discuss, saw Chaplin poking the fingers and waving for one of the Foot cronies to bag the rejected body parts. "It seems as if she's taken on emididae DNA as her new main genetic code…or the DNA itself overpowered the human DNA in her." Maeleyn blinked back stinging tears in her eyes. So were they telling her she was no longer human?

When she looked down at her caramel colored parts, the hip stripes, her overall dark green skin she felt very alien. Something terrifying shook her; an epiphany caused her to draw pensively away into herself. If she wasn't human…what was she? She'd spent so much time being human that…that she didn't know if she was even alive if she wasn't considered it, if couldn't live like one. Her heart beat wildly behind her breast, a fear of completely disappearing, of completely losing herself now coming to mind as Chaplin talked about her new DNA, of the possibility _it _could've changed her with no regard to the genetic supremacy of her human genes.

What if this new DNA caused her to lose her humanity? Just how was humanity defined?, she wondered to keep herself from emitting large choking sobs the more she thought about her new self this betraying, bastardous scientist so eagerly analyzed . Humans were known for believing they were superior, for being selfish at some points, she knew, but what else separated them from the animals? Animals had the basic emotions they did…and whether or not they could express them to the same extremes was gradually being discovered as various brave people decided to live alongside certain species, to be accepted as one of their own. In this new strange world of mutation building on old facts just who was who?

Humans were more and more often turning to packs of animals to study them, eventually being accepted to where they were one of the pack. Essentially it was a human being an animal. And, on the opposite end of the spectrum, animals were displaying higher grades of intelligence as new tests were submitted to the science world, showing animals were growing more and more like humans in all mannerisms. So where did she fit in all of that? "Well I don't care what you've got planned for her. She needs food first! Any _real _scientist knows the patient in question should be kept to optimal conditions should your results be thorough." Maeleyn broke out of her curious nearly philosophically-deep puzzle of animals and humans which now most definitely concerned her to see Rilien throwing his intellectual weight, his scientific superiority around in the face of cocky Chaplin.

The fire in his human eyes, the tightness of his fleshy face pierced Chaplin. Rilien was playing the 'mentor' card and it didn't take a genius to realize that. "Fine," Chaplin finally relented. "You'll assume control of **001** as far as maintaining her bodily health and _I'll _handle the physical testing to see how she's adapting to her new body. Clean her, feed her, and then give her to me." instructed the traitor and Maeleyn glared. If she was strong enough…!

Chaplin left a lone Foot Tech Ninja in the room with the Specters to guard them. He was unmoving, watching them. "Here, put your arm around me." Rilien, like his brother, had learned many ways to pick up a person and more or less supported all of Maeleyn and the new, extra weight given by her altered appearance. Maeleyn didn't realize how weak she was from the genetic foul play until she almost crumpled to the floor, if not for her uncle. Rilien helped her steady her shaking, slender green legs until she only had to grasp his wrist for balance.

"Alright now, try to walk with me."

"I can't," she was ashamed to say, "I feel clumsy. I feel like I have all this extra weight…" Maeleyn whined. Rilien gave a tiny smile.

"You do," he said gently, as if trying to encourage her she wasn't fat instead of facing the task of learning how to adapt in a completely different body that she may stay in forever. "As Chaplin so plainly noted the turtle DNA they injected in you has assumed dominance of you, Maeleyn. It's altered your skin color, your appendages, and even given you some protective calcifications." embarrassed at the caramel colorings on her technically naked front he only slightly pointed to them, "but it seems your other animal contributor slightly skewed the hardness of your calcifications so you wouldn't be as fully guarded as if the DNA had been purely turtle." Rilien pointed out. "And you-" he paused, seeing a grey chip of something on the floor.

Maeleyn held onto her bed as he studied it, nicking his hand on the sharp point. It was hard like a calcification should be. "You…you have a shell." Rilien breathed watching the half-sized shell that protruded from the upper middle of her back separate lightly from her asparagus green skin and meet it again like an unfinished seam when she breathed. The mutation had been so risky, so different that not all of her animal qualities had been fully formed. This shell may never reach completion on her, and it was dangerous to have it as loose as it was; he saw bits of her muscle structure function as she breathed in and the shell moved away from her back…it was fascinating.

"Does this hurt?" Rilien asked softly as he pressed the shell gingerly as possible to her back when she inhaled, keeping it between the blades of her shoulders where it rested when she exhaled. Maeleyn winced, drawing away quickly as if he'd burnt her.

"Yes!" she snapped, "Don't do that!"

"Sorry, sorry. Just checking. I'll go get you something to eat. Stay here…" _what other option do I have? _Maeleyn wondered dryly as the Foot Tech Ninja grabbed her uncle by the arm and escorted him out, locking her up once again. She tested the waters, starting delicately and wobbly on her new feet. It felt weird to calculate the weight of a half shell into her new walking gait, but she'd get it. Maeleyn wanted out of here as soon as possible, and maybe Chaplin would send her out if he saw how quickly she adapted to her body. "Ouch!"she nearly jumped when she realized the skin she'd pinched between her legs scooting off the gurney again wasn't skin, it was a tail that ran from two inches above her buttocks to her knee cap. "Damn I'm a walking Frankenstein…" she hissed, "I have a tail!"

After eating two plates worth of food (one a human would eat and one scientists wanted to see if she would eat because it consisted of things a real turtle would have in its diet) and drinking literally a liter of water (Chaplin wanted to make sure she was properly hydrated, and her turtle nature should make her want to consume more liquids, Rilien told her) she was escorted by the wrist and gentle, encouraging shoulder of her uncle to Chaplin.

She felt like she was in physical therapy for the first three hours. Everything was slow and documented thoroughly. Chaplin wanted to see how her muscle mass had changed since her human form, and he wanted to test how long it was taking her to perform simple moving tasks. So far, so good. "You're doing surprisingly well, Maeleyn." Chaplin noted after clicking the stop button on the stop watch. "I see why you're Rilien's family…utilizing your tail for balance is certainly speeding this up."

"Don't get chummy with me!" she felt her jaw lock hard as her teeth pressed together. Chaplin felt his heart rate increase slightly. Did her eyes just flash yellow? Or was there a shape change in her pupils? He couldn't tell, in the time span of a blink whatever he thought he'd seen disappeared, like a mirage. "You have the audacity to act like we're friends? You did this to me! I want nothing to do with you!"

"You'd be nicer to me, if you realized what I was doing for you."

"And just what _are _you doing for me?"

"More than you can ever know." replied Chaplin simply; thinking of the many ways Shredder cared to keep collateral against those he forcibly employed. By mutating Maeleyn, by specifically making her a turtle (that happened serendipitously, he had to admit) he made the Shredder hesitant to attack her. By making her a turtle she had more natural ways of protecting herself. Chaplin figured it was because he lived for science, like his uncle, or maybe it's because Karai had such an odd relationship of rivalry with the blue wearing turtle that he was compelled to help…sort of like karma. If he helped this turtle maybe Karai's insistency on the blue-wearing turtle would fade and it could just be them.

In the back of his mind, however, he knew neither reason he told himself he did this was the real reason. It was all in the memory of Rose.

* * *

Leonardo kept his crouch on the raised corner of the rooftop across from the ruined Wireit facility. Donatello had insisted on making this a stop in their patrol tonight, to see what kind of activity they could find. No Foot, to their surprise, had been spotted. "Let's get closer," Donnie urged, wanting to claim all the discarded 'ruined' technology as well as further scope the area. It was far too quiet and far too new of a tragedy to be as abandoned as it was.

"Alright but everybody stay quiet. Don't let your guard down because it looks dilapidated, I'm sure there's still some security in it."

"Alright _mother_, we'll be careful." Raphael rolled his eyes at Leo. "Oh wait," the red-wearing turtle drew back with a sarcastic, bug-eyed look of surprise on his green face. "I forgot my to wear my bubble wrap, does that mean I can't go play?"

"Why do you insist on always picking a fight with me?" Leo growled throwing a hand from his temple down sharply to indicate the incredulity exploding in his mind. "Go, follow Mikey. Focus on the family, not your issues with orders." Leo demanded, pinning his unrelenting, stern eyes to Raphael before joining Donatello on the ground in a crouch. Raphael scowled, doing a back flip off the building and turning himself around to face forward with a simple twist before sprinting to catch up with his orange-clad baby brother crawling excitedly through the rubble. Some rubble made mountains, others looked like a small cave he could duck and walk through, Mikey found with great joy, but was snatched sharply by the back of his bandanna before he could see just how small of a 'tunnel' he could fit through.

"C'mon, we gotta catch up with dorkinheimer over there." Raphael jabbed his thumb in Donnie and Leo's direction and Mikey watched the two brothers carefully lift and peek around pieces of rubble, Leo obviously following and listening well to whatever it was Don was saying. Mikey jogged over to his two brothers, curious to see if they'd found anything. Raphael began to help Leo clean up the rubble that had been made by the explosion hole they could see above them, organizing the rubble pieces into piles so the genius could observe what remained of the lower floor. The brothers had to be especially careful; the ground glittered with shards of glass in various sizes and the scientist in Donatello wanted to weep.

Those glass shards had once been test tubes, beakers, stirrers, vials…

All of it gone. Mikey gave a sharp, girlish yelp - the usual squeal the indicated surprise they heard so often in the lair when Mikey goaded Raph until the chase began. The baby brother nearly dropped the rubble piece on his foot when he'd found the arm. "Dude!" he cried out, "I found an arm!" instantly the three older brother's hearts leapt into their throat. Mikey was _handling _it, waving it around like it was some sort of prop. Donatello was the first to relax.

"That's not a _real_ arm, Mikey! It's a dummy arm made out of latex wrapping, plastic, and probably some decent animatronics." that was something he'd definitely be taking back to the lair. Mikey couldn't have known it was plastic because-with the kind of money Wireit could afford to spend-it had been decorated to look real. Once it had probably been a part of a dummy the company used to test medicines on when hooked up in proper simulation. The skin on the arm even stretched when Donnie locked it into a straight position, acting like lose elbow skin that disappeared when a real human bent their arm up again. Raphael and Leo, though not obvious about it, relaxed a little.

No corpses haunting them tonight! Mikey pouted at the fact his gruesome find was not real. That would so go into his theory about Wireit doing a secret turtle-hating zombie blood experiment. He was beginning to think he shouldn't watch the Zombie Muncher Marathon anymore, too. "Well…" Don looked around, a touch disappointed that anything really salvageable had already been removed, "I guess we're done here. Looks like they cleaned out early…" he frowned, so that meant anything with prints had been broken or taken away.

"Good, now let's go home, I'm-" Mikey made a whining sound. "Gross!" he lifted up his foot, seeing an odd liquid on it. "Ew! I think I stepped in someone!" surprised at the blood given the fact the news had claimed all survivors, all wounded, had already been filed into the hospital Donatello sank immediately to the ground to clear the area around Mikey's foot.

"A blood bag…" ruptured and kept cool by the house of rocks surrounding it the blood had yet to evaporate, especially the small pool around the bag. Donnie brought the crinkled object up into his eye range, unrolling it to read the label.

_**Specter, Rilien**_

_**SAMPLE: RDBL0025 v2.5**_

_**TYPE: Synthetic, AB.**_

_**© Wireit Corporation, 2010**_

"Let's get this back to the lab. I think I can get something out of it." Don urged, jumping to his feet. Either the normal cleanup crew had missed it or unknowingly covered it in retrieving their human colleagues from the rubble or the Foot hadn't bothered (or had time) to check every pile of rubble for evidence left behind. Maybe their vigorous clearing of bigger rubble had burst the bag, or maybe someone in the retrieval crew had and the synthetic blood had finally found a way to seep out. Either way, this was very important.

Dashing across rooftops like a small herd of bizarre gazelle disappearing in and out of weak moonlight the turtles raced home. They were stopped short, however, at the click and load of multiple guns around them in the darkness. "Good evening, gentlemen. I'll ask for the evidence back, now."

"Bishop?" Leonardo squinted in the darkness and the name of their partial enemy cued his obvious presence to be easier seen. "What do you want? It's trash! It's empty!"

"But it might be a way to save Specter's life." countered Bishop, knowing their penchant for honorable, noble acts. Donatello didn't like that phrase coming from him, and by the way his brothers angled their weapons, neither did they.

"Why do you care about saving Specter's life? He got somethin' you need?" Raphael inquired, pointing a sai at the coolly staring man.

"I'm not going to waste anymore words. Get the bag!" barked Bishop, throwing his arm out and pointing at those that dared stop him. He would either sell the bag to other competitors of Rilien's to see what they could get out of it or use it to see if the man would work for him after being sprung from the Shredder's steely, evil grasp. Saki still had Stockman working for him, though and that would put a small field of expected errors they might be able to use to their advantage. Bishop hated the thought of Shredder getting a scientist of r_eal _potential to work for him, but then again…Bishop had persuasion of his own.

He knew it would be nearly impossible to persuade the Shredder but an underling, perhaps…

The many men Bishop had lined up to combat the turtles fired their guns. Instantly the brothers were ready to dodge real bullets, or darts, anything lethal, but they were surprised to see thick jets of smoke pluming from each gun. They were creating a very large veil of smoke. Donnie gave a cry of distress as he felt the bag being ripped from his hands but took pride and hope in the fact he still felt part of it in his hand - his brothers blindly reached out to swat through the thick smoke and aid their worried kin. Michelangelo ended up getting whapped, clawed, twice. Their lungs were burning and their eyes stung; Leo dropped to his belly and crawled out of the smoke veil long after Bishop and his men had gone, their laughter echoing in the night.

After ordering his brothers to do the same he found his brothers smoke-stained but alright as they coughed to clear their lungs. Donatello looked angrily, shamefully at his hands. The part of the bag his large, mutated fingers had unrelentingly possessed was a frayed bottom. Bishop's men had successfully taken the labeled front and top. He scowled but paused as the moonlight caught the plastic bag.

Remnants of blood hid in the smallest creases near the bottom corners. "Let's move, now!" by the pure ruby color he could tell it had just barely oxidized, and it had probably still oxidized when catching Mikey's attention so there was a possibility that it was would be good enough for testing by the time they got back home!

* * *

When Rilien wasn't taking care of Maeleyn he was locked in a laboratory much like his own in Wireit with the exception of the large incubation and stasis tanks lining the back wall. Stockman would every now and then observe him, questioning his progress on basically recreating his files from scratch. Rilien had gotten wind of jealous competition early and had installed a program on his computer to lock even him out of his files if something happened to his original computer. Progress was slow, but they were keeping him for his great foundation in blood-based genetics. He was happy, too, despite the slavery

If they kept him they kept Maeleyn. And they would keep her due to her mutation, that and the fact he swore to end his life should his niece leave the earth. He paused, in a slight panic, as the last of the fifty firewalls he'd installed around his work broke. **PRESENT KEY**, the computer prompted him, the line blinking impatiently. Rilien blinked. Key? He'd made a key?

Naturally he searched his person to find it, thinking the key was a true key like one would use to unlock a door. The scientist thought long and hard for an hour, staring at the unsolved screen. Obviously it wasn't something physical because he didn't have it. _Wait!_ his eyes widened. _Oh no!_ If they found it…if they knew that he knew they would immediately suspect the worse, and that would be so far off! They'd get it all wrong!

Maeleyn had the key! He was almost sure she knew nothing of it, either, as that's the way he'd intended it to be. After all, if these people found out his file restoration had a key, and the knew that she knew it would be so bad. Rilien hated to think of it but the various ways to torture her would leave him alone; when he blinked the images rushed back, as he worked, they stayed with the bold captivation of a movie in his head. Sick scenarios of death stuck on replay. With determination Rilien hadn't possessed since swearing in a blood pact with his brother to assume full control of his niece while he was gone in the Navy Rilien squared his shoulders and brought up a new program as he completely shut down all attempted restoration of his files, able to access the security to the Foot headquarters due to a status similar to Stockman's.

In fact…Rilien smirked, essentially using Stockman's account after installing a Trojan and accessing the 'back door' program all computers were susceptible to during a hacking. Stockman was about to plot an escape for Maeleyn. Stockman was going to rue the day he ever messed with the Spector family.


	4. Chapter 4

Enigma

**AN:** **A very heartfelt thank you to my two reviewers for the previous chapter **FeatherGirl13 **and **Hyperactive Kitty, **I do hope you both are enjoying this and find this chapter acceptable ^_^. It brings me great joy to see my work appreciated and given some sort of sign others are reading it. I feel both flattered and excited that people are still finding strength and time to write reviews when it's so uncommon nowadays. This instills in me a great inspiration to keep going :). So, a big thank you to the both of you from the bottom of my heart!**

Very precise, very careful Donnie gently prodded the glass slide with the pink head of the Q-tip he'd swabbed in the folded crease of the retrieved blood bag when he'd finally been at peace enough to test the bag; it had been calling to him from the refrigerator for two days because he'd been so busy preparing, making things, making modifications for what could be something horrible to come. Just what would this show? How much would it tell about the missing Specter kin and the project behind what had once been Wireit facility? The anticipation of delving into another scientist's work made him shudder gleefully to the point where he almost skewed his sample. Don had to calm himself before getting the last bit he could off the Q-tip without putting fibers from the head into the blood.

He could feel his brothers' eyes piercing the back of his head as he lowered his face to the microscope and observed. Donatello had demanded they wait at his door, as he didn't want to damage any of his equipment or let his beloved instruments feel the eager, imaginative wrath of Michelangelo. "Mmm…" Donatello pulled the microscope out of zoom after eyeing the blood cells that looked real despite their synthetic label and felt around gently to hook his microscope up to the computer to transmit and freeze the image. "Come on in, I have it now…" the genius stepped back from the microscope and brought the image up on his computer in the frozen state, armed with the tracing pen technology to aid him in teaching his brothers a very late biology class. Cautiously Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo entered the neat and tidy lab where inventions they'd known for years, upgrades, and totally new projects were given their own odd place in the room below the walls plastered with blue prints, news, grafts, and any other piece of interesting information Donatello had collected throughout the years to feed his yearning brain.

"These," Donnie said circling a regular red blood cell cluster, "are genetically modified human blood cells. Now if I were to zoom in on this I could break down the components that a normal human would have in a cell such as oxygen, pigment, and things like this. Wireit was making a synthetic blood to defeat various illnesses still present in the society so these started out human." he drew the pen away from his sensitive computer, wondering what to say next. Leo crossed his arms over his chest, thinking.

"So you're saying something is out of place?" Leo inquired, knowing eventually Don would point out something wrong…especially since he said 'these started out human'. His genius little brother nodded.

"Look over on the left, Leo. These things here are vast amounts of mitochondria…nearly insane amounts of them. After I pull up the structure…" Donatello zoomed in on a lone mitochondria and literally went into the inner workings of it, isolating a DNA strand. "We can see it's closely related to human DNA, but only slightly. This is indicative of ape DNA, especially given this gene often found in furred creatures." the brothers watched the slowly whirling picture of ape DNA blink and rattle off Latin-based genes that gave the silverback gorilla its scientific Latin name no one probably cared to remember, or even bothered to learn. Raphael was beginning to feel a bit uneasy. Intuition screamed 'genetics lab' like the one they'd found underground when they first met Quarry before helping them out and reversing their mutation with the crystal moon. "And, lastly, look at this." he pulled up the last DNA oddity and magnified it, just like the other set.

"This is blood from a bull." off the web he pulled the DNA image strand of a standard black bull and compared it side-by-side in a split screen to the one frozen in the blood sample. Mikey's eyes grew wide. So somebody was playing Dr. Moreau? Just the image of the large alpha-male gorilla and a feisty bull made him wary. He was debating on drawing it, but whoever decided to blend _those _two animals wanted something aggressive and strong! Raphael was definitely worried now, as was Leo.

"So we got some weirdo playin' God with animal blood? How do we know this Specter guy didn't do it? You know…like a geeky revenge deal?" the brother stowed the sai he twirled to keep his hand busy as he grew flightier by the minute with worry. Donatello scowled, believing and yet disappointed in the fact Raphael would try to pin this on a man trying to reverse sever illnesses, and a defenseless, kidnapped man no less!

"Why sabotage his own work?" Donatello pointed out. No scientist in their right mind would! Especially not Specter who'd spent many years on such immaculate work!

"True…" Leo considered, "but what if he knew someone was going to take it, wouldn't he sabotage it then?"

"Maybe," Donatello considered, "but he'd be aiming to spoil the healing properties in it, not totally remodel it to include animal DNA. There's plenty of other ways he could've ruined his own work and trying to fuse animal and man wouldn't have been one of them." he explained. "And look here…" Donatello drew the bag under a large magnifier so his brothers could see what he'd found hours ago serendipitously. They all leaned over the large circle of glass to see the overblown folds of the label Donatello had managed to keep on his person. "Despite the rips and tears Bishop's men caused to the bag they didn't cause _this_." his pointer finger grew monstrous as he drew attention to a hole in the plastic.

"A hole…" Mikey said, rather unamused and not really caring that the bag had a hole in it when it was already in such a ragged state.

"Looks to me like a _needle _hole." Raphael grumbled, hating needles in every sense. He'd hated them since he was little and knew well what those puncture holes were; to this day his muscles still jolted under his skin in a panic when Donnie sewed up an open wound.

"Indeed, but it was an injection needle point…" Don whispered, growing quiet as the thoughts turned wheels and cogs in his brain. Raphael rolled his eyes.

"No, Don, it was a sewin' needle. Someone wanted to make the bag pretty." the genius turtle ignored his cranky brother.

"So we're looking at possible mutations." Leo leaned delicately against Donatello's work table and frowned. This would be very bad. Mikey gave a crooked frown, glad the bet between he and Donatello was unofficial. Eighteen pizzas was a lot of money.

"And likely forced mutations. Humans weren't made to be animals, Leo, no matter how little we think of them when we patrol and see their nature. This is either going to cause deaths by inadaptability or we're going to have a mutant outbreak."

"And like the classic villains out to get us, these mutants will be out to get us, right?" Mikey asked, finally stopping the whirl of his nunchucks. Donatello and Leo nodded. Mikey scoffed. "Figures. Evil dudes are so predictable…"

"But unlike ya precious movies, Mikey, this is real. These people are gettin' mutated and who knows how they're gonna deal? Who knows how many of 'em have already been made, or who knows how many samples of this whacko blood they got to play with?"

"Well…there's nothing we can do about it. I've been looking up Dr. Specter's research files and I keep hitting the same screen. Apparently he made some sort of key…an extra security to hide the more intimate layers of his work. I can't crack it without that. If I could crack it we could send it to the media anonymously and have them go sniffing. That would cause almost an immediate abortion of this sick operation." Don sighed, aggravated at the screen that kept waiting and blinking on him. **PRESENT KEY**. What key?

"Do you not remember, my sons, the very advice I gave you when we feared the Shredder would have our lives in the very first encounter?" Splinter had been eavesdropping unnoticed at the threshold of his son's lab. It was so like them to bounce thoughts off one another and assume the worst of any given situation as they tried to find a way to fight it head on, to take the battle to it. Whatever 'it' was. His sons stared at him, some wearing ashamed looks of forgotten wisdom and others just totally confused, even surprise that he would be there. Perhaps they figured him too old to understand the complexity of blood work, but he wasn't. Splinter smiled, radiating the elderly aura that often calmed anyone that experienced it.

"Let it come to us. We must sit and wait, but we will let it meet us."

"Oh!" Mikey grinned, snapping his fingers, "I remember that now! Except 'it' was 'he' or 'the Shredder' whenever you said 'it' just now. Well, we can still call him an 'it' because he is an 'it', he's a weirdo he-OW!" Raphael silenced the hyper rambling with a well-aimed smack.

"Raphael, do not hit your brother!"

"Sorry sensei."

* * *

"Good morning Mae!" Rilien had to keep a positive face, for her. He was just happy the sedative had long worn off and she could talk as she pleased without hindrance. But, of course, like her father who was strong by nature and his marine training, she refused to speak, knowing the enemy was in her vicinity. She gave a cold hug to her uncle and wished she could gush out her worries to him like she would when she was human, wanting to know someone was worried too and that she wasn't in this alone. A pang shot through her…she was already reminiscing about being a human, no longer considering herself one. Why should she?

Within herself Maeleyn knew this wasn't a solo effort—this survival here, the adjustment—but she felt farther gone than her uncle. She was the one they had mutated, not him. Maeleyn was the one they were testing all aspects of until she felt, already, at day three she was wearing thin. These scientists were stressing building her abilities in the water, and being mostly turtle she had a good base, but the thought worried her. Were they training her to be some sort of underwater spy or operative?

Was she going to be used for the military, be their little slave that hid in the ocean and sabotaged ships? The thought sickened her, especially since she knew her own flesh and blood was out somewhere in the Atlantic. Her father…how she missed him. Maeleyn wondered if he'd tried to call uncle Rilien's home yet, and wondered if he was worried (had he tried to call in the first place). Had he even heard the news out on the boat?

She hadn't heard from him in weeks! _Oh daddy…_Maeleyn drew in a shaky breath. It was hard for her to believe she was emotional enough, scared enough, to mentally call out to her father using a childish word she hadn't dared utter for roughly fifteen years. The eighteen year old swallowed the hard lump in her throat and with great melancholy dined on a breakfast much more suitable for a human than her last meal had been. This morning's breakfast was catered towards another day of swimming: bananas to fight fatigue and light foods like bagels, cereal, and crackers that would give her energy when fully digest a mere two hours later. Waiting the alleged thirty minutes before attempting to swim Chaplin made sure Rilien was secured with chains bolted to the center of his small work station in the aquatics room and, when satisfied, signaled Maeleyn to dive in. "Wait…what the hell does she have that jacket on for?" he pressed a button for a yellow light to flash underwater, her signal to come up.

Her head broke the surface and she scowled. "What?" she asked snappily, kicking her feet to keep from treading water.

"Take off the jacket."

"Bite my ass, loser!"

"Chaplin, I believe she should keep it!" Rilien gave no hint that he'd realized his own road block; he was sure not even Chaplin knew of the screen in his work prompting for a key. The Specter man had realized it when he watched the way the water made the teeth of her jacket zipper shine like silver. Chaplin gave his mentor a nasty look, clearly telling him that _he _was in charge while they were in the Foot facility, not him. "If anything," Rilien shot the glare right back, "it'll build up her strength and add as resistance to her form. Once she gets good time with it on she can remove it and her time would increase from the lack of material to slow her down." pointed out the older scientist, flaunting his logic and older years that had brought him many experiences and realizations. That logic Chaplin couldn't argue with.

"Never mind," he waved Maeleyn's angry expression off. "Submerge again. We've got to get you off this three hour block of yours." he muttered, more to himself now that Maeleyn was submerged underwater. Not that three hours being able to fully function beneath the water was a bad thing, hardly at all given her recent mutation but it _could _be better. Rilien licked his lips nervously, the guards no longer standing by his sides as an hour finally passed; they were standing next to Chaplin poolside at the ready for any mouthing off or ignorance from **001**. Now was the time.

Maeleyn would still have food in her belly to keep her going and she'd easily be able to make it out. They were stupid enough to think he wouldn't find a way to help her, or Stockman to find a way, rather. She couldn't deny that every time she went down to the ten-foot depth in the Olympic-sized pool that her eyes floated to the gate. They were dangling freedom right in front of her; but the door was mechanized and by the red light glowing subtly in the water it wasn't going to open just because she wanted out. "Chaplin," Rilien started out in a soft tone, playing the part perfectly of growing frantic as the time-triggered entrance of "Stockman" viewing the files and saving them to a hard drive killed the timer for the exercise and began to unknowingly target the pool system instead of the live recording feed.

"Chaplin! Stockman is doing something weird over here!" Maeleyn broke the surface, watching the escalating mayhem curiously. Only Rilien was looking at her. Chaplin's two Foot guards were turned to the two brains, wondering what was going on. Rilien looked dead at her, squinting. She looked down. The lights were flashing red this time, just like the door. Maeleyn's heart pounded furiously in her chest.

She took a large gulp of air, not caring if that gave her away. The newly made turtle female of three days shot like a rocket into the water, relying on what her uncle deemed 'Red Eared Slider' nature to shuttle her through the rising door as the darts from the Foot guards gun sank all around her, trajectory and speed reduced by the water. A risk taker, brilliant, she took the first little height the door gave to give herself more time for a getaway; while the humans were waiting for a door to accommodate their weak certainty she'd be long gone. Or so she hoped.

Maeleyn rose panting out of the waters, confirming the fact she had indeed been in an underground laboratory as she hid carefully amidst the fluid, weak collection of grass that made the island the Statue of Liberty stood on in her stone-made glory. She was still in New York and Manhattan no less! Her luck was finally turning around. While thoughts of her uncle, what they might do to him, plagued her she took a second deep breath and plunged deep into the icy water to look for some sort of sewer pipe or sewer-leading opening.

It was too risky to go on land. They might capture her and send her right back in, or put her in a zoo. Twenty minutes later she found a great gaping hole that was indeed a sewer tunnel and continued her even pace despite her burning arms as she traversed them. All connected, all splitting here and there…she only hoped she was leading herself towards an opening. Maeleyn shuddered and feared the thought that she might die in these very waters as she sought escape, and no one would find her because she was in the sewers.

Logic soothed her when she realized lights were built in to many of the tunnels, allowing her visibility and enhancing her turtle-given water vision as she kicked along into a different intersection of pipes. Humans must have to come down her and repair pipes even here, she thought as she reversed her swimming pattern after nearly an hour of going east when a dead end met her. The girl was trying as best she could to keep track of her time; if she surpassed the three hour limit…no! She didn't want to think like that!

Her father had raised her to be a tough girl, a princess warrior, he'd called her when she was little…despite the fact it embarrassed her when she got older. Like every other little girl she'd wanted to be a princess but she loathed the idea of having to wait on a man to save her. So, her father began teaching her how to save herself, and the Maeleyn the Princess Warrior was born in a bedroom during story night as Kier Spector tweaked the tale _Snow White _to fit her female supremacy fantasies. Forty minutes were wasted reversing from dead ends as each branch from this intersection she'd been in for what felt like the last hour showed no promise. Only about an hour of air left.

Somebody up there better be looking out for her! _Mom…_she thought softly, as if to call telepathically to the mother she never knew and silently begged for guidance. It always hurt her that she grew up without a mother, but now was not the time to think of that. Now was the time to trust her gut, to have faith, and focus on finding a pocket or opening big enough to let her breathe! She wasn't used to swimming this long without a break!

Chaplin's swimming exercise compounded with the swim for her own life was really taking a toll. And the jacket! God the jacket! Maeleyn thought only once about unzipping it, nearly throwing it off but she recalled the painstaking, clumsy way uncle Rilien had repaired her jacket after she'd ripped nearly all of the seams out of the right arm on a tree branch, and how the following fall knocked teeth out of the zipper line and kept it. Maeleyn held onto it for the sentimental value and for the fact it may be the last thing she owned with uncle Rilien's touch.

She couldn't imagine what they were doing to him! On her last thirty minutes of air, trying to force the tension and burn out of her body so it wouldn't ruin her swimming technique, she was finally making headway. Every pathway she'd come across since following the long tunnel east had only had one option in it, making a winding 'S' shape around to the west and back once more to the east. Her lungs began to cry for air and she saw the water around her turn fuzzy as her consciousness began to wear then, and she panicked. Maeleyn swam faster, desperate not to die, hoping the next few feet would somehow save her life. Inside herself she gave a great cry of relief as a halo of light shimmered on the bottom of the sewer floor; she swam towards the opening with the vigor of a dolphin intending on jumping through a hoop.

"Ah! Oh god…god…" she breathed hard as she broke the surface, panting. Maeleyn tried to raise her tired, burning body out of the water and gave a cry of distress. Her jacket was hooked on something! _No god, don't do this! Don't do this! I have air…but my legs hurt so much! I can't keep supporting myself! Fuck you Chaplin, fuck you! If I die I swear to God…!_

"You must pay attention, Raphael" instead of a great white light she was hearing voices? Maeleyn struggled to keep her head from bobbing back into the water like it had four times already, gasping for air and determined to keep her nose afloat. A green body crashed to the ground not too far from her weak line of vision, rolling to an abrupt stop when it met the orange stone wall near her. A male turtle! Her heart raced with joy, people lived here! People could save her!

And they were turtles no less! Had Chaplin gotten a hold of them, too? The jade green turtle did a double take with his glinting brown eyes framed in the crimson red mask as she gave the tiniest cry and let her head give out for a few seconds before attempting to hold it up again. Even her soaking hair was adding innumerable pounds to her exhausted body. "Please…" she managed to say through the water, barely over it, "please help me. Stuck. Caught. Can't keep swimming…"

" 'Ey yo, sensei! I got somethin' over here! Don't just stand there, guys. Gimme a hand!" Raphael was more than capable of snatching this…_thing _out of the water, though. It looked slender and small compared to the depth of their in ground pool Donnie had made. The asparagus green hand trembled as it shot up out of the water, seeking land and something hard to hold onto. He clutched it, put his feet shoulder's width apart and pulled ferociously. One great tug had the figure dislodged and rocketing out of the water to head butt him; they fell back to the stone floor with a great thud.

All motion stopped. Maeleyn coughed water from her body and shivered, happy to be alive and have air filling her lungs. "Jesus…" instinctively she gripped the right arm of her jacket, feeling cool air penetrate the fabric. Maybe she had snagged random threads as she swam, she thought, and the final catch had caused the seams of the right arm to nearly disappear as the tree branch had those many years ago. **001**…the tattoo captivated Splinter's sons.

She was…female. By the way her ruined jacket peeled and flapped away from her frame she was turtle. She was like them. Splinter was the first one to approach her, worried for the condition of this creature that had invaded their home. It reminded him of the swimming period for his own boys, and how they would sometimes forget where they were swimming, hit a minor block, and then panic like they were going to die in mere seconds. "Are you alright?" Splinter asked gently, sinking to his knees before the turtle creature with perfectly straight, soaking obsidian locks highlighting her heavily breathing asparagus green face.

Maeleyn groaned, still catching her breath from the adrenaline trip. "Swim practice…training…Chaplin, damnit Chaplin…fuck Chaplin…uncle…errors…guards." Donnie felt like his eyes were going to leap from their sockets and fall out his mask.

"Y-you're Maeleyn Spector. You're alive!" she caught her breath as she gently swung the sacred, temporarily ruined jacket off her body. Carefully, she stood, eyeing them all with caution, distrust, and confusion.

"I _was_ Maeleyn Specter." she corrected him, folding up the soaking jacket, "Now I'm **001**…thanks to Chaplin." Maeleyn scoffed nastily, giving her right arm a lose wiggle so they could see the tattoo. Raph felt the tension in the lair mount as the brothers came to the same realization, and probably simultaneously. It was already beginning…

* * *

"_And if I help you?_" the voice on the phone asked nervously. Bishop smirked.

"I can wake the dead, and that's something you're very interested in." there was a pause and Bishop knew he had his pawn, his in-between. Ragged, nervous breathing filled the line. Bishop could understand, the Shedder was something to fear, being an advanced Utrom possessing ninja skills and whatnot, but he was also something to be feared. Especially after he got his hands on some animals for his super soldier project.

"_What do you want?_"

"Give me all your current records on Specter's synthetic blood and whatever experiments you've undoubtedly, idiotically made by now. One of every kind you have."

"_In time_,_"_ promised the voice with utmost honesty, a pinch of fear in his voice. The Shredder must be coming, thought Bishop. _"We're still cleaning out cages from the mishaps. We haven't had very many survive at all!"_

"How many have?" Bishop inquired.

"_As of right now? A cat-human hybrid, a bat-sugar glider hybrid, and a turtle."_

"A turtle?" cried Bishop nearly incredulously despite his desire to stay cool and stoic. Had these people really managed to catch one of Splinter's children? When he attempted to even dissect them while General Blank and the Triceratons hunted for the Fugitoid that long while ago he'd very much tasted Raph for even uttering 'dissection' when the rat found him.

"_Yes_," said the new mole, "_but she escaped earlier this afternoon."_

"She?" had he heard that correctly? They had made a female turtle? How interesting. Things just got _very_ interesting. "Good enough for now," Bishop hissed into the phone. "Go, get what you can, I'll have my men meet you with the cargo outside the pier. Act like you're dumping the bodies."

_Click_. Yes…Bishop pushed his glasses up on his nose with a smirk. Things just got very interesting. He clapped his cell phone shut. "Maybe it's time I pay Master Splinter a visit. Or…" he quieted when the lab tech analyst nervously approached him, a clipboard in his hand.

"Sir, we've analyzed the blood bag we pulled from the turtle."

"And?" the pointed glare caused the messenger to falter a little.

"The DNA was a silverback gorilla and a bull." Bishop smiled. If he couldn't face Splinter head on, which he wouldn't try anyways after more preparation, maybe he could make a temporary soldier to stake out his latest key to creating perfectly controllable super soldiers. "Put what you have into the gestation chamber. I expect to see a mutant tomorrow morning."

"Yes sir!" when the underling left Bishop lounged happily in his favorite chair, flicking his cell phone open and shut as he thought aloud.

"Now if I were a turtle," he said, "and I'd found a female turtle, what would I do? What would my annoying rodent father do?" Bishop saw the reflection of himself looking into an off computer screen and smirked. "I'd be trained to fight and right a wrong." that meant Rilien. "The question is," he whispered to himself, "how long do I have to wait?"


	5. Chapter 5

Enigma

**AN: A precious gem met me this morning, and when I say gem I mean no ring, but it is a jewel all the same. I would like to thank **Candlelit1** for sending me a review, it was very kind :). I am proud to be writing this piece which warrants such kind reviews and honest interest in what is usually such a cliché and dangerous move (making a fifth turtle, a female hybrid, I mean). My friend is very pleased her creation, Maeleyn (in the sense of the name) is being used for a good purpose. If anyone else wants to know where I am writing /publishing to please check my updated profile, I have listed sites that I am on and continue to give fiction or drawings to (please note I am a writer, not an artist, but I do try xD). Please enjoy this chapter, and thank you all once again to my wonderful readers: **Candlelit1, animecrazygirl1, FeatherGirl13, **and **Hyperactive Kitty.

"…and after being unconscious I woke up on the gurney. Apparently I was given a heavy sedative but my uncle had slipped in to check on me, whether it was by himself or with prompting I won't know. That was my first night there. When I woke up the next morning I…" Maeleyn paused her reiteration of the events that had only taken her away from mainstream society for three days. Looking down at her new hands, the ones that were at least two sizes bigger than her old human ones, she couldn't help but think the difference barrier had been up longer than three days. She felt like she'd been isolated for a lifetime, any hope crushed as she realized the people she'd once loved and hung out with could never truly accept how she looked. Who would? Every day, she felt, would be forthcoming with the same depressed feeling, the same need to hide and shy away so no one could see what she'd become.

Eerily as it seemed she found solace in the news reports now declaring her and her uncle dead. Being dead was better than being this, or so she thought at the moment. She wasn't even human anymore; the loss of her human appendages at the floor of the gurney had made sure to sear that fact in her mind. She was just an animal now. That thought even made her sad, for she wasn't even solely just _one _animal.

It seemed whatever sphere she tried to breach, human or animal, she fell into neither classification long enough to feel totally happy. Maeleyn feared this sick, traumatic depression threatening to consume her was some sort of side effect, or that it would. The more she kept trying to classify herself the more she was reminded there weren't very many for her to call 'friend'. Just her, **001**, and these unmarked but clearly real and functioning turtle males before her. "You what?" Mikey asked curiously, preferring to sit in the arm chair across from the couch. Maeleyn flexed her three-fingered hands, trying to stop the tears from coming.

The image of her detached fingers and toes was enough to make her cry all over again as the fear rushed back, the confusion and the utter sickness she felt churning in her stomach that morning. It actually gave her a headache. "I…" she tried to find her air, feeling like she was swimming aimlessly again in the sewer tunnels, "…some of my fingers and toes had been rejected during the fusion of the new blood into my normal blood, and I'd stepped on them the next morning." her eyes glossed over as she spread her tinier female hand open to show the empty spaces between her digits, much like they had. Those fingers were gone now, with her normalcy, but she could still see the ghost of them when she looked at those empty spaces. Had she not woken up to them beneath her feet she would still very much swear she had them, despite what she looked like.

She looked then to her feet, which had two toes just like theirs, and frowned at the loss of her other three toes on each foot. Maeleyn shook her head, "…anyways…" after wiping the tiniest trace of a betraying tear from the corner of her eyes she clasped her hand. "That's my story. No more, no less." Maeleyn watched Splinter's ears lower, the rat's eyes partially taken by pity, but soon they rose again to their normal pose, as did his emotions. It was hard for her not to notice how his ears wiggled around on his head as he spoke, or the little twitch of his whiskers; he'd been very gesterous as he told her of their mutation before asking her story in exchange.

"You may stay here as long as you wish, Miss Specter. It is important you respect the newness of your condition." Maeleyn locked her jaw and stood.

"With all respect," she said to Splinter, "I'm glad to have been pulled out of your…pond…but my uncle's still there and I can't leave him in there. I don't know what they're doing to him!"

"Your intentions are noble, Miss Specter but it is simply unwise to rush into such an imminent battle unprepared, let alone by yourself."

"We would just feel better if you stayed here." Leo added, resuming his cross armed position over his plastron. "If you escaped they're probably looking for you, and if you walked right back into their stronghold there's a high possibility you won't come out alive."

"Oh I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this so soon…you've all been so nice." her tail swished agitatedly by her side, jaw hard again. For a brief second her eyes flashed gold and died, resuming the grey color. Kudos to Leonardo jumping on the tail-end of Splinter's wise sayings but the peanut gallery comments were the least favorite of Maeleyn's pet peeves. "Let me share something else. I do not like unnecessary comments from people other than the person I'm talking to, including the alleged eldest with the ego bigger than his katanas over there." Maeleyn could switch from calm to feisty within a matter of seconds; it was part of having her dad as a navy man and her mother being gone.

He had indeed raised her tough, and her childhood with pressing, bitchy cliques in the making had ingrained in her the flawless way to shut someone down cold. Especially men. Dating life was more than rough for Maeleyn, but that was mostly her fault. She tended to fall in love with the guys that swore to love her the first day and then tried to jump into her pants on the second day. Passion and romance was the forbidden fruit to her teenage conscience, and a few stupid times she'd given in – lucky enough to not have been knocked up. Subsequent month-long groundings after the four incidents had easily reigned in her pent up exhibitions.

Leo discouraged the snickering from his two youngest brothers with the pointed glare mastered from Splinter. Donnie subtly coughed into his hand with Mikey preferring to bite his lip and let the last of the giggles fade as best they could. The eldest gave a small sigh, locking his jaw. Be nice, he thought, she needs our help. She's one of us…even if she is acting like a bitch. Maybe that's her cover up for being so confused, Leo attempted to reassure himself, already hating the smug grin Raphael had on his face.

He was never going to hear the end of this. Raphael would probably be worse now that he had someone else to help him infuriate Leo. Damn, that was a good one, too, he mused. Leo got burned! The second eldest was betting if she hadn't been under a sedative or strapped down she would've been one helluva bitch to fight.

"Have they been displaying a routine while you were in captivity?" Donnie inquired, "Gearing you towards any particular activities?" feeling the annoyance ebb at the way Leonardo would sidle into his father's conversations, onto his side and be the unofficial echo of the kind rat she sat down again.

"Swimming, of course…but I figured that was only because they wanted to see what characteristics my lungs were taking on, you know. Human or turtle?" Don nodded, rubbing his chin.

"That gives us a bit of relaxation then. At least they weren't gearing you to kill us as we'd suspect of them."

"Of who? Those weird bug-eyed people?"

"Mmmhm. Commonly known to us as the Foot. An ancient band of ninja thieves-"

"That are a pain in the ass." Raph grumbled from the armchair he lazily propped himself up on, playing the three fingers of his left hand boredly along his sai, dangerously close to Mikey's head which the youngest didn't seem to mind. How odd, Maeleyn thought.

"Raphael! Please restrain your tongue."

"Sorry sensei. Slip up." the disbelieving brown eyes of Leo pinned him and Raphael lifted his lips just the slightest fraction to show his displeasure at the pointed glare. Like a real animal. "Won't happen again." hissed the jade green turtle with his heated eyes fixed angrily on Leo, despite the fact he spoke to his sensei.

"They've dabbled before in genetic experiments and they may just be needing your uncle's project to make sure the next batch don't go away so easily." Donatello told her.

"Well, how many crackpot people could want this stuff? I mean, it's blood! Albeit fake most people hate blood in general, especially live non-bodily blood!" Mikey smiled from the armchair, amused with Maeleyn's ignorance of New York's dark underbelly.

He put his left arm on the arm rest, leaning crooked as Raphael's swiping motions took a wider range, the tip barely grazing his mask. "Well," he said, "There's Stockman but he's in the Foot, same with Chaplin. Bishop…oh, Bishop's good, and we know he's after it. If the Foot are in it the Purple Dragons probably have some stake-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up. I'm from Rhode Island, okay? Explain this New York gang stuff to me retard style."

"There you go Mikey, speak her language. You're more than capable."

"You callin' me a retard or your brother?" Maeleyn was unafraid to shoot Raphael a hot glare of her own. She wouldn't stand for male supremacy which would automatically shove her into the 'helpless' category. Helpless was something she wasn't. Scared and confused maybe, but not helpless.

"Unspecified," Raphael gave her a cold smirk. He didn't trust just anybody, even if they looked like them. Humans were generally harder for the terrapin to trust given the human gangs out to get them, and the human exoskeleton of the Utrom always trying to kill them. Female reptiles, however, were even harder. It had taken his whole life in a close-knit environment to trust his brothers, and Casey was still earning his points. April slid in on a technicality with Donatello. "I just call 'em like I see 'em."

"I do that too!" Maeleyn made no effort to disguise her sarcastic tone as she slapped her legs and faked a large, jovial smile. "And the way I'm seein' it you're a helluva lot more capable than him so why don't you take over, red?" now Raph was not smiling. Her assault on Raphael made Leo grin a fraction. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, after all.

"Now listen here," Raph pointed a finger threateningly at her. Maeleyn quirked an eyebrow at him. Seriously? Giving her orders? At this point she should probably be thankful he saved her life but he was that special kind of annoying to make her both admire and hate him.

Sort of like a badass jock playing his cards just the right way. "Krav maga!" cried out Maeleyn when Raphael dared bare his teeth at her. She went for the throat, shooting her arm out in such a straight, direct manner it made Raphael stumble against the closest wall as he struggled to breathe through the pulsing pain in his throat.

"I do not take orders," she growled, "and I sure as hell don't stand down in the wake of somebody else. Don't point your finger at me and don't attempt to boss me around unless you got the balls to put me down. Got it?"

Splinter lowered his ears, slightly amused. This could be just the lesson in humility Raphael needed, from someone other than Leo for a change. It took two turtle brothers to hold Raphael back, and Donnie's strong insistence to convince Maeleyn to back off. Both turtles-Raphael and Maeleyn-had a bright, hateful fire roaring in their eyes. Interesting indeed.

* * *

"Hello, Ms. Chaplin."

"Agent Bishop…" his own leading technology-genetics developer didn't take her eyes off the specimen developing in the tank as she acknowledged him. Bishop stepped up to the tank to analyze it as well, dissatisfied that there had been so little blood left in the bag as to have his specimen in a week instead of a day. "You'll be pleased to know we've pieced together some of the bi-animal blood puzzle." she said, flipping her wavy blonde locks over her shoulder and writing down the specimen's vitals for the current hour.

"And?"

"It seems that one set is overall dormant, despite the possibility of both sets creating the new appearance."

"Get to the point, Ms. Chaplin."

"Well, sir, the second set is very real, and very present but can only be harnessed in extreme circumstances. The second set holds the true potential for the subject…but it's not easy to unlock. However, once it's been activated the access can be much easier and frequent, if the subject so chooses."

"Or if we chose." Bishop said rather coldly, smirking as if he'd just one an arduous battle. So that's what he had to do, huh? Now he had a new list of things to do: find that escapee female turtle and find what makes her tick. After pissing her off she could be apprehended and dissected…or whatever else he had planned for her. Rose nodded as she walked around the currently unnamed specimen's glass to observe him in the full.

"Right, but with Gustav here," she placed a hand lightly on the glass, "since he's got a combination of such naturally aggressive animals he's much easier to manipulate. The underlings of the lab will be installing a chip in him soon, and soon he'll be easy to control. It'll be just like controlling a computer character."

"That easy?" mused Bishop. They had never tried anything so efficient, or unordinary. Usually his experiments were made of cyborg technology that he could shut down like a computer if gone rabid, and the creations were usually given his own DNA so he had better control. To hear that he wouldn't have to risk any of his blood, or his brain cells, was very amusing. It would be just like hypnotism, or having the perfect pawn. He began to exit the room after his watch trumpeted midnight; it was time for the first pick up.

"Sir?" Rose called quietly, a note of nervousness in her voice. He turned a fraction, the play of the light on his glasses showing he was listening. Rose swallowed. "What about my brother?"

"In due time, Ms. Chaplin. He gives me what I want and I'll give him what he wants."

"But what about what _I _want?"

"I listen to my employees very well, Ms. Chaplin," Bishop assured her, "especially when I need them but what you're asking has a large ability of crippling the whole operation. Let a few more factors come into play and if it's time, I'll do as I promised."

"And if you don't?" she asked, her nervousness rapidly ebbing and turning into light fear. Bishop was probably just lying to her. He wasn't above lying, just like his adversary.

"Then know your wants were sacrificed for a good cause."

"Your causes aren't always good, Agent Bishop."

"Neither are your wants, Ms. Chaplin." he let the door close behind him and Rose frowned deeply, hugging the clipboard to her chest. She knew her wants weren't right, or even normal, but she couldn't help it. Rose couldn't help how she was wired. Her black eyes looked to Gustav's cage. But she could help how he came out.

* * *

Rilien didn't know how to feel; on the one hand he felt proud he'd helped Maeleyn escape, and on the other he felt gravely wounded. Though he hadn't been wounded like Stockman for not knowing how to handle the escape situation he'd let go the closest thing he had to a life line. A friend. Family. Kier was still out on the sea and with his wake up time rolled back to an hour earlier, and his portions cut just slightly Rilien was beginning to think he'd go delirious before he could ever help again.

Maeleyn needed help, and lots of it. Who knows where she ended up? Most definitely not here, that much he knew. Demoted to working in a very blank, bland cream room with only a bed, a small desk big enough to only support one computer, and a chair that threatened to crack into pieces on him, he wasn't entitled to the machinery he needed to contact Kier. The few botched sheets of his own research he gave the aggravated, going-cyborg Stockman day by day was slowly running low, too.

He could only doctor his own work for so long. A great fear swelled in him at the thought of running out, or at the thought of someone seeing that damned screen; he'd yet to be able to do anything about it. He lacked the tools he needed! Actually…maybe the screen would help at this point. If he explained his road block maybe they would escort him into another room where he'd be able to send a message to Kier on the ship! "Guard, I need to be taken to Stockman, or another higher officer." said Rilien pointedly, sparing him no meek inquiry, as these people who ran the place clearly though he should possess. For only a few minutes did the guard look curiously at him; how did he know there was no brilliant plan behind the simple request.

Finally, he relented. "Come with me." Rilien was gradually getting used to the iron vice on either one of his arms and tried not to grin as he was led down the twist of hallways to the very man he needed. A brief swell of fear rose in him. This was the boss…the master…the mastermind of this whole organization. Glinting in the few torches kept in his private room Oroku Saki donned the Shredder uniform nearly every waking hour to assure Rilien didn't see his face. Saki, if it wasn't evident by Maeleyn's escape, couldn't trust the Specters. More importantly he didn't want witnesses.

"What do you want, Specter?" he asked through his mask, raising a gauntlet out of habit. He was so used to scientist failing, meeting his gauntlet that his patience for them was naturally thin.

"I've been hitting a hidden screen in my work retrieval and I need access to some other machines to recreate my key."

"A key?"

"Yes. I made a key that unlocks the memory to my more intimate files for the synthetic blood and I need to recreate it. My current room gives me no way to do this."

"And how long will this take."

"If I'm left alone," Rilien looked back to the guard that had brought him here, "I'd say about three days. I have to get every detail in it right or it won't work."

"What do you require, Mr. Specter?"

"Peace, quiet, and access to every piece of technology you have." the Shredder gripped the table hard beneath him. Light cracking sounds came from the table, and slivers of dark wood were shaved away, revealing a caramel undertone. "It seems like a lot, I know." Specter urged, this figure did not look happy at all. "But you have to understand, Wireit had _the _latest developments available. If I can't get close enough to that standard I don't get a key. No key, no more files." his heart skipped beats and hammered hard on his chest as his mouth absorbed every bit of saliva he possessed, or so it felt. Rilien's adrenaline was through the roof.

"Very well," the head of the Foot clan waved him away. His guard picked him up again, dragging him to a different room this time. This room was much, much larger and had rows of smaller machines on tables. Gurneys, splicing lasers, microscopes, computers, large specimen containers – it was basically a scientist's dream playground!

"Leave." demanded Rilien, knowing he now had the permission from the head of the clan to order his underling captors around. The guard took his time exiting the room, clearly miffed. Rilien bet money on it that his guards would congregate around the door, ready to bust him at a second's notice. After an hour of hard work putting in miniature chips and cable nerves into a metallic exoskeleton of Maeleyn's zipper he stopped working on it for the day. He was tired, and hungry. The silence, though, and the newfound trust directed towards his promise gave him hope.

It didn't take genius Rilien long to assume a new tactic of hacking outside the Foot system monitors and into the Navy base computer. He could've closed his eyes and wrote his brother's e-mail in, and didn't worry about errors as he sped his fingers along the keys for a brief message. _God I hope you get this, Kier! _he thought, _you may be the only one left to help us from the outside!_

_Kier, _

_Big trouble. Maeleyn taken, Maeleyn changed. Bi-animal hybrid. Apparently turtle. DNA project gone wrong. Escaped. In Manhattan. I'm still in captivity. Find help. Alert government. DNA spawns coming in large numbers. Impending outbreak. Find help._

_Rilien._


	6. Chapter 6

Enigma

**AN: Probably super early for the next chapter, I know I'm not giving much a chance for reviews to come (what with school probably having already come and maybe some people even working…) but I'm so excited at how well this is blending together! Usually my plots experience some temporary disjointed shifts but this is amazing! And by the stats page I can tell people are reading it. Thanks for the 191 hits and 130 visitors! As always, big thanks to all the readers – the ones that review and the ones that don't, you're all very important!**

Kier arched his eyebrow curiously after he read the e-mail, finally relived of his personal job on the two hundred-men crew when shift switch kicked in. Was Rilien kidding? He wasn't usually the type to pull his leg but the whole thing sounded so farfetched! Maeleyn, a turtle? That sounded ridiculous! _Maeleyn…baby, I miss you…_Kier thought of his only child, the last he had of Serene.

He wasn't sure what to type back. The blinking line stared at him impatiently, proving it was there to help him make the words he currently couldn't find. Best be quick, before someone got suspicious. There wasn't too much privacy on a boat with two hundred people. _Rilien_, he wrote back, _are you okay? It's not like you to type so disjointedly. I'll do what I can to help but I'm still on the ship. We're not due back in for another week or two. You could've stumbled into something top-secret, bro. My superiors might shrug it off if I were to ask but I'll give it my best._

_Keep going strong and I'm not sure of Maeleyn right now, if what you say is true…but keep my girl safe._

_Kier._

Shutting down the e-mail window the forty-four year old gave a rough sigh, rubbing the rough patches of stubble already reviving his five o' clock shadow. If what Rilien was saying happened to be true then the government had found a new way to attack the enemy; they were just a distraction. This patrolling of the seas and training was just something to occupy the public to disguise an underground project no one knew existed. "Admiral Kier?" Captain Gossner called out; prim as a naval man should be. Kier turned his golden brown brows to face the captain and saluted before finishing his approach.

"Yes sir, captain?"

"You're being requested for a call in the superstructure." Kier scratched his head a little, confused. Usually Maeleyn or Rilien would call his cell phone, knowing well he kept it on him. His heart skipped beats at the realization. They were gone, so maybe it was someone with information, or Rilien had also escaped.

"Thank you captain!" he all but walked to the superstructure. The heart of the ship's control was tidy and clean, and few bodies were in it at the moment. Captain Gossner soon joined him, shortly after his heart returned to normal and the Specter man was looking around curiously.

"Have a seat, son." offered Gossner as he motioned to the spinning burgundy colored chair. Slowly Kier sat, confused. Had they found a body out in the ocean or something? _Oh God no! Please don't say anything about bodies! _he prayed, eyes flicking back and forth to his captain and the unidentified man he'd yet to be introduced to. "It's come to our attention you received an e-mail about a…possible mutant outbreak? Something about contaminated DNA?"

"Yes sir, captain. My brother sent it to me. He's in trouble, my daughter's in trouble I-"

"How would you like to see your daughter, Mr. Specter?" the second man asked. Kier swallowed, creating saliva in his sawdust-dry throat. He'd give anything to see her, to know she was okay!

"Very much, sir."

"Then can I interest you in my offer?"

"I'll need to hear the terms, with all due respect."

"My name is Agent Bishop. I'm head of the E.P.A, Earth Protection Agency. It's been around since President Nixon and I need some highly trained agents to keep an eye on the field for me."

"This concerns me how, Agent Bishop?"

"Because it's your brother that's being forced to develop the DNA. It's your family these people are trying to hurt." he had a good point, Kier would give him that. The deal, however, sounded too simple for the alarms and bells in the seaman's head not to be going off. It was too closely lined with Rilien's e-mail, too.

"So what do you want me to do, Mr. Bishop?"

"I want you to be my eyes and ears in this organization. From the inside…"

"Given Mr. Bishop's position I've been persuaded for the greater good of the nation to have you go with him, Specter. So from now on, you're his. You are no longer a crew member on the U.S.S. _Eagleton_. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir."

"Come with me, soldier." Bishop had docked his personal plane from Area Fifty-One on the launching pad the vast navy ship had, should anyone need to be life-lined in a situation the on-board medic couldn't handle.

"What's this, sir?" Kier Specter asked as at last the doors to the plane were shut and he could hear safely. His new commander had given him some sort of suit, and by the way it stretched beneath his thumb it was breathable for the body.

"It's a Foot uniform, Mr. Specter. You're going to be a Foot soldier."

"So what's the plan?"

"You gather your information and report to me by the pier every Friday. Follow all other orders I give you, unless you feel it's an endangerment to the mission or yourself. I need you alive as long as possible." _Gustav's not ready yet, _thought Bishop. He had to _find _that female turtle first, and he had to make sure Specter didn't know what he was doing whenever he helped take her out.

* * *

"Wakey, wakey! Eggs and-YEOW!" Splinter's ears twitched as he gently set down his cup of steaming tea. Perhaps the breakfast hour was one their new houseguest was yet unaccustomed to. The lab was a straight shot from the kitchen area, so it was easy to see Michelangelo getting thrown out of Donatello's bedroom, holding his nose. "What the shell was that for?" he bellowed, softly and curiously pinching the bridge of his reptilian nose as his eyes watered. That punch almost felt like it broke his nose!

"Don," he whined walking up to his older brother, "did she break my nose?"

"There's not even any blood Mikey I-"

"It _hurts_!"

"What the shell did you do to her, Mikey?" Leo asked as he saw the mark beginning to purple on his little brother's green skin.

"Apparently she doesn't think six is an hour at all. She was dead asleep. I figured I'd be the nice guy and be like 'Oh hey, want some breakfast dudette? Totally have some in the kitchen!' and she gave me a knuckle sandwich!" he crossed his arms as Don walked away. There was nothing wrong with Mikey's nose so he wasn't going to bother. Raph smirked, putting his dishes in the sink.

"Sandwich is a breakfast food, Mikey."

"You're only on her side because she bopped me."

"You're right, I am."

"Sure as shell wasn't smiling when she threw your attitude back at you." Leo pointed out, a tiny smirk on his face. Getting back at Raphael was fun, and sometimes required thought for he had his own hotheaded wit, but having a _chick_ get back at him was funnier. Raphael growled in response, brandishing his fist.

"Leonardo! Raphael! Go warm up with your brothers in the dojo. I shall handle our guest and see if she would care to join us." the brothers had just finished the last repetition of leg flexes when the rice paper door flung open and Maeleyn stumbled in looking wild, frantic, and seeming to have just rolled out of bed as she shot into the nearest corner, scowling and holding the wall.

"Your dad is crazy!" she hissed, squinting at them all. "_Crazy_!"

"Nice sex hair." Mikey chuckled at her messy locks. Maeleyn turned up her turtle nose and smoothed down the sides of her hair, frowning.

"Let me guess, cold water?" Don wondered. Splinter had proved himself not beneath that when they were younger. It was like some ancient form of annoyingness, or water torture. He remembered he'd stay up late reading a new book and wake up not even after five minutes when water would hit him square in the forehead and continue to annoy him when he resituated into sleepy bliss again.

"I wish…" Maeleyn grumbled. "He twisted up my blanket with his stupid walking stick and dragged me halfway across the freaking living room."

"I remember that trick!" Mikey grinned, recalling the many times he preferred to sleep in before the morning practice had been drilled into him. "If you were still asleep by the time he got you to the kitchen he'd get the hose from the sink and spray you." he laughed, having to wake up dripping with icy water more than once. Maeleyn's eye twitched as he told her that; because that was always comforting, right? This place was utter madness.

Madness!

"Today my students-please, join us Miss Maeleyn-we will be revisiting our sparring exercises. This will help us bolster our defenses against our own weaknesses and provide us the knowledge of fighting different styles." Splinter said wisely from his position at the front of the dojo, standing calmly with his two hands gripping the top of his cane. "Most importantly I would like Donatello to fetch the medical kit. And today I would like Leonardo to fight Michelangelo." Donnie went to fetch the medical kit he had ready to go from his room as Mikey and Leo looked curiously to one another. Surely that wasn't it? Raphael had yet to be paired…oh.

Mikey began to giggle, and that caused Maeleyn and Raphael to finally get what was going on. They looked at each other and scowled, turning away like a pair of children forced to hold hands or go on a play date despite the fact they weren't getting along. Splinter gave a slight smile. He felt that even though this confused new houseguest incited the bitter parts of Raphael she would bring a much-needed mellowness to the restless warrior in him, too. It would just take time.

Much like how a fierce storm would lose its edge after the passing hours. Donatello sat quietly in a lotus pose next to Splinter, pleased he wouldn't have to be fighting today. The genius didn't particularly like fighting; he'd much rather be inventing. "And I would like Miss Maeleyn to pair off against Raphael."

"Master Splinter, with all respect, I want a challenge. She don't even know the first thing about bein' a ninja!"

"Then we must teach her, Raphael. Would you send a kunoichi into battle alone, unprepared? "

"Well, no but-"

"Then it is settled. We won't. We must help Miss Maeleyn culture what skills she has so that when the time comes she may correct what negativities the Foot has presented her."

"Is it just me," Maeleyn raised her hand, cutting off the father-son talk, "or does anyone think the loving words of the oh-so wise Master Splinter sounded like a huge novel cliché?" Splinter gave her a look and Maeleyn took that as the signal to lower her hand. She was just kidding! The wise rat master cleared his throat to resume his train of thought and finish the exercise decree.

"The two of you," he motioned to Maeleyn and Raphael, "will train after Michelangelo and Leonardo." Maeleyn pouted, adopting a cross look on her asparagus green face as she and Raphael sat far away from each other on opposite sides of the bench while Mikey and Leo took their starting stances. She hated to admit it but watching these natural terrapins move was something to behold; graceful and fluid it was like a lethal dance. Or a really good action movie; either one got her stoked for her turn – the only issue she had was _Raphael _being her partner.

The family and Maeleyn had only known each other for hardly a day and she already didn't like him. He was arrogant, angry, muscular, conniving in his own jock-ish way, stubborn…just the type of human she used to love. _Humans_…she thought with a light sneer escaping her. Humans had made her what she was. Chaplin and Stockman specifically; Maeleyn had nothing against the humans she loved, or the innocent ones. Just the bad ones.

_Oh no_! her emotions were getting to her much easier than they used to, she noted, accustomed to bottling everything up and letting hardly anything show through, _does this mean I'm losing my humanity?_ it was the worst thing she feared. To not be human anymore…to be totally and wholly an animal. Then she would never be herself again. What if the process was irreversible?

Before she knew it—as she panicked and let her hands twitch, her eyes race around the room—it was hers and Raphael's turn. Maeleyn was beginning to think she didn't like the way he presented himself, and that's what made her angry with Raphael. Not only did he remind her of the poor taste in humans she used to have, or probably still had-she wasn't sure if she'd be able to test that, or if she'd want to-but he was so like the dominant type that wanted to prove his position. Sort of like Chaplin and his demands. While waiting for Leo and Mikey to finish she'd used that time to observe the dojo; it was beautiful.

Decorated in a light beige color and set with fawn brown wood trimming the walls were gorgeous. What would be a bland dojo or typical setting was made ornate with intricate calligraphy work of Japanese characters she couldn't understand, and even some paintings of his terrapin sons in various poses. The detail and style of the artwork tickled her own creative muse but it would have to wait—whoever did them though was surely a master. The painter had found a hidden beauty in each of the turtles. She could sense the calculations behind Donnie's brown eyes, the playful spirit in Michelangelo, and the determinism in Leonardo.

Raphael she preferred not to think of. In fact, she wanted to think of him as the ugliest, foulest thing on the planet so her natural human instincts would be quashed. She didn't want to believe anything could happen between her and these real turtles. Not ever, and not so soon. Maeleyn was a human and they were…well, she liked to think she was still a human…even if she wasn't.

She pulled out of her inner thoughts and looked around the room again, no longer caught up on the beautiful walls that had given personality to the training room. Maeleyn had been going for a large weapons rack at the side of the door before getting distracted. They all had weapons, but she didn't. Her gray eyes raked over the assortment of Japanese weapons; some she'd seen only in movies and some she'd never even seen before. What to pick?

Gingerly she lifted what looked like two short-handled scythes from their resting place on the rack and swung them experimentally. Not too heavy, little resistance, lethal blade. Her hands would have to get used to the weight and texture of the handles but that would come in time. For now she was just leveling the playing field. The sharp sound of wood on wood roused her light intrigue with the glinting curved blades. Master Splinter's walking stick holding the left weapon down at an angle.

"I respect your eagerness, Miss Maeleyn but weapons will come in time. A kunoichi must earn her weapon. Raphael will not be using his weapons in this fight to make it fair." Maeleyn just stared curiously at the rat, her brain slowly registering the fact she had to put them down. They were so shiny! It was the first time she'd stopped and stared at herself. Her green skin didn't look too bad; she liked the way it clashed with the gray of her eye and what smeared mascara and eyeliner remained from three days ago. While the sight of herself both made her heart ache with disappointment there was also a swell of hope.

At least she didn't come out looking worse. She could've came out as some ugly-ass hybrid with a fat turtle face, long human neck, flippers for hands, and who knew what else? _Ting!_ before she could blink her hypnotic gaze into the polished weapon was broken as a set of sais whizzed past her head and pinned the weapons into the back wall. Maeleyn watched, eyeing the rocking weapons slowly coming to a stop as the sais held them in place. She snorted.

_Show off_! thought Maeleyn as she crossed her arms and looked at Raphael with a mean glare on her face. He smirked. Raphael knew he was good; nineteen years of training had assured that. "The objective is simple, Miss Maeleyn. Pin the opponent."

"I guess that won't be too hard," Maeleyn mused. "I might even be able to get him to pin himself." she laughed. Raphael's brown eyes narrowed. How dare she mock him? Mikey laughed from the bench the rest of his brothers had collected on, no doubt influencing Maeleyn, Raphael grimaced. Was everyone against him since she'd arrived? Is that what having boobs did, add to the power of persuasion in a battle of the sexes? Apparently it had that effect on his brothers.

"Woah!" Maeleyn barely had time to get out of the way as Raphael attempted to rush her, bringing his muscled body forward with a speed that belied his stout frame. "No start?" she cried in disbelief.

"No," Raphael hissed, determined to earn some of his damaged pride back from this female. "When you're a ninja you get no 'start', no 'go'! You _make _the start. Wait around for someone and someone's gonna put you on a slab and start cutting." he growled to her. It was true, though, he thought, especially in New York. Especially with the people that were hunting him; people like Bishop and the Foot.

"You don't have to be such an –_oof_!" Maeleyn's body couldn't really handle the 'nasty response' and 'dodge' function at the same time. She certainly hadn't expected Raphael to swing his large arm in some sort of weak attempt to flip her at the stomach, but he'd done just that. Maeleyn felt the air leave her as she landed flat on her back, gasping slightly. The motion jarred her slightly detached, forming shell and she groaned; it had dug into her skin a bit.

Quickly she got to her feet, rolling out of the way before jumping to a stand again as Raphael's leaping kick connected his big green foot to the ground where her right shoulder would have been. She lunged at him; intent on taking him down by the waist like a vengeful little sibling would finally snap and assault another sibling. Instead of this turning into Raphael's defining moment in reclaiming his male dominant status it had turned into a scene mimicking his and Leo's childhood as he wrestled her wildly to the floor; both of them rolling and alternating the top spot as they squabbled and growled like five-year olds.

She fought dirty! This shocked him, not too much, but the fact she was actually fighting dirty…fighting like a male instead of some whining female, had given her just the slightest bit of edge she needed. Currently Raphael was trying to claw his way back atop Maeleyn to flip her into the wall they were closest to using only his right eye for vision. She'd gripping his bandanna tight and yanked it hard to the right, skewing his vision, giving out a dry, amused comment that she could actually wiggle her fingers between the fabric and his fat head.

He growled and she giggled. Just as he thought he'd get the upper hand back, his arms wrapped around her waist seconds before he went to pitch her into the wall she whipped her tail around her left hip and smacked him with enough force to send his body forty-five degrees to the right. It dazed him a bit, and stung. Raphael kept his feet firm as he finally found the time to set his bandanna right and try again. She stood there, waiting on him, grinning smugly with her long tail swishing behind her from left to right.

"Playtime's over." he hissed, tackling her like she had him. Raphael was wary of any back flips given the new use of her tail. She might just nut-check him if he did try it. Maeleyn clawed at him as he finally got her down. Raphael smirked; feeling victorious as he glared down at her. Her asparagus green arms trapped above her head in one giant jade-green fist.

"Not ready and _not _ninja material." he hissed to her, heart beating furiously behind his chest. That was one helluva fight. Her eyes flashed golden and an odd growl vibrated her thin, smirking lips, only causing Raphael to be alert far too late. She'd wrapped her tail around his left leg and pitched him off of her. Raphael watched her face as he hit the back wall, her eyes going grey again instead of golden. Was he seeing things?

He scowled. "Obviously you have not learned your lesson in humility yet, Raphael. A true ninja can only succeed after being tempered by humility once his knowledge of the three pillars is complete." said Master Splinter as Mikey kept giggling and making background noise for the interesting fight. Yeah, he'd heard that all too much and simply scowled. The second eldest was so used to waving a sai to tease his enemy forward he forgot what it was like not having it in his hand; nonetheless he made the 'come here' motion with his right hand and she obeyed. He smirked.

The mood of their fight, which was like a superstitious person testing if they could walk on water, changed after he'd looped his arms around Maeleyn a second time and sent her head first into the dojo mat like a wrestling move. She was dazed and fighting the obvious head pain as she tried to regain her balance long enough to stand. Raphael wouldn't let that happen, and gripped her hips hard as he hugged her tightly to his plastron, intent on jumping and forcing his weight on her as they crashed back into the mat, probably to break a rib. Maeleyn dug her claw-like fingers into the mat and hissed; he was causing her sensitive half-shell to pulse painfully at her back, and he wasn't getting off.

What an ass! She tried to wiggle out of his hold but clearly he'd reached a level of rage and determinism she hadn't yet found. If he pressed for much longer she'd match him again, or as best she could. Her body shivered, goose bumps breaking over her arms. The way he breathed into the sensitive ear-like depression at the side of her head was odd. Husky, almost. Wanting.

_No_, she thought disgustedly, _no! That's ridiculous! I wouldn't even touch him if he was the last fuckable thing on the planet! Clearly he just gets frisky in the fight…_ a sense of bloodlust electrified the tense battle and seemed to evoke their true primal nature as they circled each other, Maeleyn finally having clawed her way away from the red-wearing turtle.

Alarms rang in Donnie's head, in all of their heads, as they saw the hard glaze in both fighters' eyes. Splinter quickly intervened, as did Donatello and Leonardo with Mikey more or less standing in between his two brothers lest some extra forced be required from the back to keep one or the other restrained. "Enough!" Splinter hissed, the biting tone seeming to stop Raphael in his tracks as the hazy film cracked lightly in his mind. _No more anger…_he tried to think as he clenched his fingers into fists, his fingers digging into his palms, _shit's over. You're done. She's done._

"Clearly it was a bad idea to start you off together and that was my mistake but you've both done well. Your control is much better, Raphael. And Miss Maeleyn…your endurance is good for someone with no ninjitsu training."

"I was raised not to let anyone best me if I could help it." she glared at Raphael, even though her sense of security was returning and she was reminding herself she wasn't in any real danger. Her adrenaline slowly began to lower as she fought off the memories of her school fights, the taunts from the mean children poking fun at her for having a dead mother and a father always gone.

"You're bleeding." Maeleyn looked over to Donnie, who was pointing to Raphael's cheek. She looked down at her left hand, her fingers tipped with blood. They'd scrapped pretty good, hadn't they? "Let me fix you up."

"Forget it!" Raph snarled as he smacked Donnie's hand away, and the cotton ball smelling of sharp peroxide. "I'm going out."

"Raph, wait!" Leo started to run after his brother, to tell him to stop so Donnie could patch him up but Splinter held up a hand. Leo stood in place, frowning. Splinter knew it was hard for his children underground and knew that—especially as boys that had grown up together with rare bits of privacy—sometimes they just needed time alone. Raphael indicated this when he got in such foul moods.

"You're bleeding, too." she couldn't tell by the way the blood had dribbled down her face, nearly perfectly in between her eyes but Donatello dabbed at the free-falling blood with a cotton ball, tilting her head to observe the scalp. "He got you good…" Don mused, parting her hair as best he could to dab a stronger concentration of peroxide to her bleeding scalp.

Maeleyn winced and, as a reflex, tried to pull away from Donatello as the clearing agent began to bubble and burn away the infecting bacteria. She hated peroxide! "I'm sorry." much to her dislike, her personal honor, she felt like she had to apologize. After all…it took two to tango. Or scrap…she and Raph had certainly gotten into it.

"I wouldn't be so worried," Mikey shrugged. "Raph gets like that sometimes."

"He's just not used to getting his shell beat by a girl." Leo folded his arms, thinking of how adaptive Maeleyn had been during the fight. Maybe it was something she'd learned from her father, he thought, or someone in her family; one minute she was cautious just like Raphael and the next she was ready to go for blood, just like him. She showed whatever he showed; maybe it was some sort of defensive mechanism a scientist had put into her…or maybe it was a natural instinct that they didn't tap into as much. She had more reason to be vicious and play off of the enemy, Leo reflected as he looked at the situation; she was a female turtle, smaller, and probably weaker given her recent mutation.

"You might want to get cleaned up. Mikey show her where the shower is, and how it works."

"Would you like to take a shower with me?" Mikey purred playfully. Maeleyn shot him an unamused almost tired look.

"I just got done fucking up your older brother; please don't make me hurt you. I'm really tired. He puts up a hell of a fight."

"Michelangelo, before you show our guest the shower perhaps you will show her how to do a proper flip for your lewd comment. I do not tolerate such coarse language in my home, Miss Maeleyn. Both of you will do twenty flips."

"Are you seri—"

"Twenty flips, Miss Maeleyn." Mikey groaned. Leo and Donnie snickered, but when Master Splinter gave them a look they quickly exited the dojo. Anything to keep them busy was fine. Leo took to minor cleaning and Donnie took to his inventions once more. Leo tried not to grin as he could hear the rhythm of their hands touching the dojo floor and then their feet as he straightened the pillows on the couch and folded the recliner back up Mikey had carelessly left open after what had probably been a late night of video game playing.

Soon after he went to meditate by candlelight in his room until the dojo was free again, and Donatello had his headphones on, bobbing his olive green head to rock music only he could hear as he dealt with tiny screws and the backing to the remote Raph had probably broken again.

Maeleyn groaned. _Everything _hurt. She thought she was sore after all the adrenaline had faded from fighting Raphael but now all the pain was back, and intensified. She never knew how to properly execute a flip in her new body, and doing twenty in a row _hurt_. Satisfied, Splinter smiled. That would curb her mouth, he thought as he went to settle on the couch and watch the television.

"Now, dudette. The shower."

"God I need it…" Maeleyn groaned, waving her tired, heavy arms. Mikey grinned.

"No kidding. OW!" she stuck her tongue out at him and Mikey smiled. "Alright, dudette. You pull this to turn on the shower mode…thing…and when you twist this nozzle over here you get hot. This one's cold. And shampoo's up here." he pointed to a shelf Donnie had carved out of the stone wall after he'd set the tub they'd spruced up in the track he'd made. Maeleyn's eyebrows arched curiously.

"Why do you need shampoo? You're bal-" Mikey did NOT want to hear how he was bald. Casey made enough joking references to that for all of them to be sick of it. And his jokes sucked, too.

"Master Splinter has fur. And April showed him the joys of shampoo and conditioner during one of her stays."

"April?"

"Long story, but you will need to meet them. Maybe we'll do that this week. Not sure what sensei has planned for you yet."

"As long as it gets my uncle back I'm fine. I think he understands how worried I am for him but the fact that I need to wait is _excruciating_!" she whined, clutching her heart. She missed uncle Rilien. Was he still alive? Maeleyn would like to think so. "Anyways…thank you and get out. I need to shower." Mikey saluted her, soon walking out and shutting the door behind him. He listened to the water rumble behind the door and sighed a little bit, trying to wonder what it was like knowing your family was holed up in some evil stronghold possibly dead, possibly alive.

Just what were they getting into with her? he wondered.


	7. Chapter 7

Enigma

**AN: The last three reviews I received were very welcome. They're actually making feel better. My physical health is poor at the moment; I've contracted some sort of bug but I'm hoping to fight it off within the next few days. I have to start work this Sunday and my college classes start the following Monday so I'm not sure how my schedule will be but I promise sure as the sun does shine I'll make a good effort to update! A big, merry thank you to the reviewers for chapter six: **FeatherGirl13 **and **Candlelit1, **also to the newcomer to my stories: **writestyle**!**

Raphael let the rage consume him in the east side tunnels, his tight fists colliding with the moist stone wall again. An animal in him died to escape; the natural nature of his long subdued by intelligence, morals, and training couldn't be sated anymore. It was driving him crazy. He had to guess it was something to do with his hormones…and his nose. God the _smells_!

Usually he was fine with the almost calming, watered down stench of the tunnels near the lair, and he was delighted in the brief mixed scents escaping from the surface through the grates with the sunshine but since the fight with Maeleyn hours ago nothing smelled the same. Was that what it was like to smell a female turtle? He remembered April's smell, but she didn't smell so…_raw_ or _provocative_, even with the fancy perfumes she bought to make Casey's nose happy. Maybe he was weird, or maybe it's because he was an animal. Raphael wasn't sure.

He let out another belligerent holler, pounding his right fist into the cracked wall for the last time, the fury in him ebbing and finally replaced by the pulsing pain of a broken hand. It wouldn't matter; with their alien DNA and the odd regenerative capabilities it would be better by dinner. What time was it? He'd up and left without even so much as his weapons which were still staked into the back wall of the dojo, he remembered. Raphael _had _to get out of there…he didn't trust himself after getting a whiff of that odd smell.

The smell that had come from Maeleyn-how he wasn't even sure-brought him to life and made him wide-eyed like some sort of druggie on an acid trip. Frankenstein taking his first steps. His heart thundered rapidly behind his chest as he gripped her hips, trying to wrestle her down as his cheek first began to ooze blood after she caught him in the face with her claws, his muscles tightened. A haze just like his rage lay low on his mind, putting him on some sort of autopilot; he felt like he didn't know what he was doing but his body did. It was odd, and just recalling the frenzied scrap made his mouth run dry and his body began to burn with fire.

It was just too weird. Not natural. Raphael shuddered as he remembered his own breath. That was all he really remembered…not the feel of her beneath him, not the sting of claws on him or the animalistic way she fought for freedom. The memory of him lying on top of her, pressing his weight down as she tried to get away, faded in and out. He remembered the raspy quality of his breath on her turtle-made ear and clutched the wall hard beneath his fingers.

This wasn't right at all. He was so confused! "Damnit!" he growled, pounding the wall with the side of his good fist, scowling. Stupid human. Stupid female! _Well_, he thought, _she ain't really human. Not any more._ So what was it he hated about her? Raphael wasn't sure.

Maybe he didn't like the fact she was new, and in their home. She was totally disrupting the order and routine he'd gotten used to, to the very core! Never before had they had a permanent housemate. April had her stints of recovery but she always left back to her home where she belonged topside. She'd most certainly never been a mutated turtle. A female mutated turtle.

Trying to battle down the frustration that was Maeleyn from his brain he made his way home. Beating his ass, getting _somewhat close _to beating his ass was the only reason to be mad at her. That and her damned mouth. Other than that Leo or Donnie would easily call his displeasure with her unprovoked, and it was, he could agree to a certain point. _I really shouldn't blame the kid, though…_he tried to convince himself as he approached the sewer door, ready to pull the main lever, _she's got her own issues too._ if there was anything he hated it was vulnerable women, and Maeleyn was most certainly one of them.

How would he feel if his life had suddenly gotten turned upside down? If he woke up a completely different species with nobody else to fall on after the only one out there for him helped him escape a whack bag facility? Raphael entered the lair to see Maeleyn flipping her wet hair loose from a coiled towel on her green head, smacking Mikey across the face with a delighted smirk on her asparagus green face. What playful banter they had going died when they looked to the door; Maeleyn slowly lowered the towel she was scrunching her hair dry with. There was caution in the air, and that made him feel worse than he already did for going ballistic on a girl that didn't even know what to make of her own life at the moment.

Mikey wisely left the two hotheads be. "Listen…" Maeleyn walked up to him without fear and he simply stood straight and looked at her, his hands staying at his side. "I'm sorr-"

"Don't bother."

"Look, I'm trying to apologize here! You don't need to be an arrogant jerk about it!"

"I'm not!" he growled back, clenching his fists. "I jus'…I get where you're comin' from. I know. Heard it a million times for Leo when he's finally guilt-tripped into getting off his high horse for dinner with the mortals." Raphael lazily threw his hands up and rolled his eyes. Maeleyn's eyes softened a touch and made an effort to hide that. The fiercer they thought of her the better; showing any weakness would probably delay her 'training' Splinter was so insistent on _and_ keep her away from uncle Rilien longer than she had to be.

This whole thing…thought it had happened to her…changed her life…wasn't about her. It was about saving her family and stopping the sick Foot fucks from ruining anyone else's life! She clutched her branded arm lightly, wincing at the ghost impression of the pain. "Don't look at it," she whispered, catching his molten brown eyes staring curiously at the bold numbers on her arm. "Don't give me that pity look…" she hissed.

Nicer kids in her youth had given her that look. The ones that understood and had missing mothers or busy naval fathers. That look killed her, and made every ounce of happiness nonexistence. She wasn't raised to be pitied, or accept it; she was raised to be proud of her navy father and stronger than a normal kid could be. She was made to endure her life knowing she'd have to live on phone calls and a distant voice, and that every time he came home it was Christmas and her birthday, even if the months were all wrong for either occasion. Raphael crossed his arms awkwardly, needing something to fill the silence that had occurred between them.

If it wasn't evident in the way she fought Maeleyn was far from feminine. It was odd, Raphael thought. When he looked at her he most definitely saw a female…albeit a mutated one, but a female. There was power in her slim frame; a steely resistance in her watery eyes. A cracking steely resistance. That he could relate to; having his own emotional walls crumble fantastically at points when he couldn't handle the emotions anymore, rare instances when he could've easily killed himself to escape the madness of not knowing what to do feeling so…_exposed_.

His brothers didn't seem to have the same kind of emotional issue that he had, and Splinter even noticed this when mentioning he turned his anger inward instead of expressing it like the others. Sometimes it built up and he had to let it out; storming off, crying, fighting. It all worked. But he could see that same kind of pressure in her; it was like looking at his face in the mirror…just a different shape and color. "Anyways…" he found his voice again after realizing the unsettling silence of the lair that made his senses tingle in agony, "we got off on the, uh…we started bad." it was odd to extend his hand as an act of apology to her.

He was hardly used to doing this, even with his brothers. Surprising him again, further poisoning and killing the stereotypical female image the media had cultured him to, Maeleyn gripped his hand with the straightforwardness of a male, squeezing it firmly. "That I can agree to," she said, "but maybe we'll be a little more civil this time."

"Awww! That's so cu-OW!" Maeleyn had wrapped a couple of unused coasters Master Splinter so neatly stacked like a tower on the neat little table in her towel and pitched it at Mikey. Raph smirked. At least she knew how to shut Mikey up. That's a girl he could respect. Takes care of herself! Maybe she was stronger than he gave her credit for…

* * *

Kier felt so _weird _pretending to be the enemy. The costume fit well enough but he was very cautious about his mannerisms; apparently all the similarly dressed 'ninjas' as they were acknowledged knew only one form of martial arts, and to a great degree. He knew numerous ones to a mediocre degree. Unaware that the red-haired male he'd set his sights on was a mole for Bishop Keir's instinct told him to stay alert, and watch this one.

The trained navy man wasn't sure what to think anymore; besides the fact the guy that employed him had a few screws lose. Must've come from working in an organization kept quiet by presidents and history alike. His heart thundered wildly in his chest when he was ordered by a senior member to stand guard with a few others over Rilien. He could've cried and jumped for joy but he had a mission, and in the end it would be better for Maeleyn and Rilien, even him, if he stuck to it. It hurt so much not to be able to hold or comfort his own kin even though he was mere inches from him.

Rilien looked positively awful. Ragged, worn, down to his last nerve, the scientist brother took precision and great care carving out the teeth in what looked like a clay skeleton to a jacket. Kier had no idea what he was doing, or why, but he took comfort in the fact his brother was still alive. "Sit here and watch him, grunt." the two other guards that were 'teaching' him left the room with their guns hanging low and lazy. To do what Kier didn't know.

He sat oddly on the bed in the dead silence, daring not to say anything since he knew the room was under surveillance. Rilien, though looking absolutely exhausted, looked crazy. His hair was in disarray like it was during a breakthrough and his face barely glistening in sweat; his eyes were the craziest of all. Wild and twinkling like sparks from an electrical fire. Had this place broken him already? Kier wasn't sure how strong such an intelligent mind was.

"I'm going to get you," Rilien jabbed a warning finger at him as he hissed. "All of you," he growled. "I'll get all of you! You'll rue the day you fucked up my niece! I'll take this place down with me!" they'd given the scientist free reign of the room because he didn't have the means to escape by himself and Rilien dared march up to the masked Kier and squeeze his bicep. Kier, hoping Rilien wouldn't be too crazed to see it as a prelude to a fight, twisted his arm behind his back and thumped him thickly in the back as he often did when they were kids.

_Please_, prayed the older Specter male, _please Rilien. See that it's me! I'm here to help you!_

His prayers seemed to be getting an answer. The wild Rilien paused, grunting at the thunk on his back and swiveled as the silent guard released him, glaring and preening his lab coat he'd been given with the Foot insignia shining brightly. "What?" snapped Rilien, "Are you in on the great plan, too?" Kier just stood still. This was his dorky little brother's way of telling him what the Foot was planning on, and he could turn around and tell Bishop!

Then Bishop could turn around and snatch Rilien out of this place, or so he hoped. He crossed his arms, looking mean and stoic as the mask hid any detail of his eager eyes from the all too brilliant scientist. "As soon as you catch that female turtle and extract her DNA to find out _how _she survived I'm gone, right? Or are you going to keep me around to make more creatures like her? Kill me as soon as you're done?"

Was that really all this ninja organization had planned? It seemed like a small goal to reach…but then again he couldn't be sure of how many failures they'd incurred while trying to make more animal creatures like his missing daughter. How was he supposed to know which female turtle was her, anyways? Who knew how many they'd made? "What about freedom? When can I bargain for my freedom?" asked the scientist impatiently, "I'm almost done making the key so I think I've earned some negotiation time."

_Key? What the hell? What key?_

"The grunt would know nothing about that, Mr. Specter. Return to your work at once! The Master is getting quite fed up at being empty handed."

"Well I hate to be a burden," hissed Rilien sarcastically as he folded his arms across his chest, "but making a replica takes _time_."

"I suggest doing your work then, instead of wasting your breath. Search crews have long given up on finding you now, even alive. You work for us now." _you're wrong,_ thought Kier. _I got called out of __**navy **__training to find my little brother. You will fall, all of you. You will regret the biggest mistake of your lives and I will make sure of it._

"Grunt!" Kier was pulled out of his angry thoughts and turned to face his superior. "Go patrol the docks; security was picking up something odd on the radar. The others are waiting on you." he exited in the pointed direction and stopped short of three identical men crowding him the second he left.

Someone else led to the docks and Kier looked curiously around. No matter how many times he docked in Manhattan it never ceased to be foreign and enchanting. "What the hell is that?" one Foot soldier asked incredulously, pointing out an inky silhouette barely seen to the one beside him. Kier squinted. That definitely wasn't human. It was _huge_. The large shape rocketed towards them, rearing its black head as it swung its tree trunk-thick arms out in a three-sixty spin, clobbering two of the four-man squad out to investigate.

Raging red eyes on a fuzzy face stared dead at him after a sharp kick broke the other man's neck, the body slumping against the piles crates that seemed to decorate the constantly used docks. It was some sort of…bull-ape hybrid. _What the hell is that? A bull? An ape! It's a bape! _Whatever _it _was, it had the posture of a slouching ape, the arm length of an ape, but the short-haired torso texture of a bull. The only real hair that gave it the fuzzy quality was the shaping and growth around the face that was also ape-like.

Instead of curled-in fingers apes possessed and walked on the bape—Kier was having too much fun calling it that—had curled hooves separated into five hard digits shaped almost like talons due to the finger-like shape the hard part resembled. It had the horns and actual head shape of a bull, despite its dominant ape texture on the face. The bape had no tail, and thick, stout hind legs of a bull shaped almost like an ape foot at the bottom despite possessing the same finger-like hove digits as the front two legs. Nose poking out like a bull's the babe snorted at Kier, close enough to the human for Kier to feel the warm, moist breath of the beast.

Bishop came out of the shadows, a pleased smile on his face. "This is Gustav. He's our first test. We decided to make our own mutant line to combat the Shredder's. Agent Kier, Gustav. You'll be joining him in hunting about two weeks from now."

"Why two weeks?" asked Kier curiously, wary of the large beast. Obviously Bishop had it under some kind of control or he wouldn't be so free around it.

"Because that's how long I think it would take for them to show themselves." _Who IS' them'? _Kier wanted to ask but Bishop had taken his show and tell into the shadows again like the onslaught had never happened and bid him goodnight. Gone, like smoke through his fingers. The man just stared. What was he getting into? he wondered.

Who was he really fighting? Both sides were gearing up for a war but where was he supposed to stand?

* * *

"My friends, are you alright? I wanted to come by and check on you." Maeleyn nearly pissed herself when she saw the large, hulking crocodile standing at the doorway of the lair. What scared her more is that he had such a calm, gentle voice for someone of his stature. "Oh? And who are you? This is quite the find. Another mutant…"

"Long story LH," Donnie said, waving his friend in, "but this is our…housemate, Maeleyn Specter."

"_Maeleyn Specter_? How nice to meet-"

"Spare the flattering adoration. My uncle was the brains behind the whole synthetic blood. I just stood there and watched."

"Sort of like Raph watching Donnie because he can't follow-OW!"

"Neither can you, Mikey so shut it."

"Don't compare me to him, Mikey! I'm insulted!" Maeleyn mocked horror and pouted as she popped him in the back of the head - as natural as anyone else who'd been doing it for nearly nineteen years just like Raphael. Mikey rubbed his head again, pouting. When was someone going to stick up for him? Was that too much to ask? Raphael scowled at Maeleyn; no one needed to know they weren't ready to kill each other yet. It was too soon. She stuck her tongue out at him, earning a slight look from Leo that she ignored.

"So you came to check on us?" Leo stood between the squabbling Mikey and Raphael, holding them from one another like children. "What got you so worried?"

"I saw eyes in the sewers."

"Dude, so do I! No one really believes me but-" Mikey began, Raphael smacking him in the back of the head. Maeleyn felt kind of bad for the guy. Seems like everyone got a slap on him…except her. She'd probably have to put that on her list, right above getting what stuff she had from Rilien's house. The act was funny though.

"Quiet Mikey," Raphael snapped, "adults are talking."

"Hush Raphael. I can't hear what my fellow adults are saying." Maeleyn scolded him, grinning after Mikey did. Mikey had an infectious, nice smile for a turtle with no dental care. He blew a raspberry at Raph, rewarded with a large green hand grabbing his face like 'the claw' and shoving him to the floor.

"These eyes were no ordinary eyes, Michelangelo. They belonged to something large. Quite large, perhaps even my size."

"Then what was it doing in the sewers?" Donnie asked curiously, tapping into the camera systems he'd installed into the sewers to see if one of them had caught anything. None of them had gone off so obviously nothing tripped it but still! Leatherhead shrugged his large crocodilian head.

"I'm not sure but…" something registered in the genius animal's head and he looked to Maeleyn. "Hunting." said Leatherhead, "it was hunting."

"It makes sense…" Donnie whispered, now tapping a pen against his chin as he stopped scribbling out some idea that had come to him. "What's probably _the _only existing man-made mutant is a good prize. Especially with you being female." he now turned to Maeleyn, genius brain running full blast.

"So what's so special about her being a chick? Four handsome turtle dudes and even LH, here, have been running around way longer than her! No one's wanted us yet except Bishop."

"And the Foot," Leonardo reminded him, "the Triceratons not so much…let's see, who else?" tried the leader dryly as he wanted to remind his little brother that this new game of hide and seek was nothing to pout about since they weren't the target for once. It gave the leader something else to fear, though, seeing as they were housing the target.

"She can have weird mutant kids." grant it Raphael wasn't the brightest of the bunch he at least knew that. That was common sense. Maeleyn felt sick to her stomach. Someone wanted her just so she could be knocked up by another mutant and keep putting mutants into the world? She felt nasty and grimy even, despite the shower being only an hour old by now.

"Oh," Mikey paused his comical rant about not being a prize for whatever Leatherhead had swore to see near his home, "well…that makes sense." said the baby brother simply. Although not the _best _reason he could see why someone would want her.

"Who do you think made Leatherhead's creepy-eyed friend?" Mikey asked curiously.

"Either Bishop or the Foot. Which do you think it was, Leatherhead?" Leo asked curiously. At this point, with what was going on and what they'd discovered thus far he wouldn't put it past either enemy of theirs. Leatherhead gave a small sigh and shrugged.

"That, my friend, I cannot answer."


	8. Chapter 8

Enigma

**AN: A big thank you to **Mentoria **for sending me a message to my Fanfiction inbox. She did not review but we did indulge in a small chat which was just as nice! She is, in fact, a TMNT lover so she deserves mention :) (All TMNT fans deserve awesome recognition, right? Haha :) ) **

**Just so you know: this chapter is LONG! No reviews for chapter seven as of yet and no one to thank for those reviews but that's fine. People may be busy or away, I understand. And really it's not about the reviews (although they make me smile) it's about a good story, which people are apparently liking. My orientation for work went well and now I'm going to post another chapter to unwind. I start college on Monday so I'm kind of excited. I'm hoping to get into the regular routine of updating AT LEAST Friday through Saturday, with the new chapter being on one of those days.**

**Don't know my work schedule yet so I can hopefully put the weekend up for free time, and thus the story. To be honest I'm not sure how much of this story you guys want or how much you're willing to read. I have the plotline down but no set number of chapters so it may go well into the 10's or even the early 20's. Just want some preparation on the fans' part. Still, bottom line, I want to thank everyone for the immense attention on this story; the 'hits' and 'views' are astronomical on my traffic page and that just really, really makes my day! Thanks a lot, everyone!**

**Enjoy!**

Three weeks had passed and Maeleyn was starting to feel the wear of stress and agitation as the days mounted and her hopes of rescuing uncle Rilien alive slipped farther and farther away. She wasn't mad at Splinter by any means; he was just trying to make sure she was prepared because apparently this Shredder person-who Leo and the others swore it was the more she tried to recollect memories of the facility and odd people-was really bad news. Even for four ninjas of nineteen years. This made her apprehensive and put more stress on her full mind, wondering how uncle Rilien was surviving when all around him were trained assassins. The teen couldn't even figure out why she kept saying 'is' about Rilien's alive status; she was beginning to think she should assume the worst and think 'was' constantly.

Give up like the police and the media had. It just wasn't in her, though. Being surrounded by what things she'd brought to stay with Rilien while her father was away made her breathe a bit easier though. All of her clothes, shoes, make up, and hair accessories had been brought to the lair about four days ago. Retrieving had been something to do to keep her mind off of the fact she felt like she was getting nowhere in the self-proclaimed rescue mission.

Splinter was being slightly lenient on her topside ventures though; she could go out if she had one of the others with her and with a little more freedom near nighttime. Just not on patrols, not yet. Hell, she could only go out about a foot or so to either side of the lair door before the rat got cautious! She was making steady, exhaustive process with three daily training sessions just like the boys…except hers were like ninja kindergarten, and each day she proved herself Splinter was mentally releasing the distance restriction from the lair. Maeleyn received nothing but compliments and the advice of patience from the rat sensei and practically lived on it, much to Raphael's displeasure as the trait reminded him of Leo. Her aim was only to do enough to let Splinter allow her to start looking for Rilien, not to be top turtle like Raphael constantly felt Leo was trying to pull.

She tried to look with honest interest on the slide Leatherhead was showing her, explaining how she was indeed part crocodile and what might happen in rare instances of rage if her sample was taken from his own blood but Maeleyn was just too distracted. Rilien, Rilien, Rilien, Rilien; her brain was ate up with her uncle. That was the only thing she could think of, whether she tried or not. The crocodile friend of theirs had been coming over a lot more since two weeks ago; the 'eyes' had left the sewers but a bad feeling lingered in the large, intelligent beast.

Being an ex-resident he was welcome to stay, he just had to stay on the couch. Maeleyn found it nice to have another mutant around, not that she disliked the ones she was coming to know by any means, but it just felt better to have Leatherhead around. Maybe it was because the big guy reminded her so much of her dad; strong, intelligent, gentle, and irrationally violent when provoked. Amazingly lethal if he felt like it. The teen swore she could feel her crocodile DNA being called to when he was around; another like her, her blood screamed. Family.

A pang shot through her. _Family…_she thought, _just who is my family now? I mean…I have two different families! Two different species entirely grouped into the same category because of me. And yet, I don't care. I love them all like family. I just miss my biological family._

Someone in the bunch never failed to remind her of people she missed dearly. Donnie was without a doubt Rilien, and Leatherhead was her father. Mikey was closest to Jezebelle-god rest her soul and agonizing family, she hadn't forgotten about her. Not for a minute. She'd be missing a year on Wednesday-which was her best girlfriend up until nearly a year ago when she never came back from a trip with her aunt. Leo was…who was he?

Leo was somewhat like her best guy friend Devon; not afraid to put it bluntly even though his 'bluntness' was gentle, the voice of reason, a little nosy, and a tad overprotective. Splinter was like the grandfather she never had, her biological grandfather died long before she was even conceived. That left Raphael. She hugged the red ratty pillow to her chest as she moved her tail and curled up on the couch, only half-focused on the TV Mikey assumed control of.

Who was he? Maeleyn could always call him Chance but even Chance had up and left her after she thought he was the special one. Chance had been her first, and the sweetest of any guys she'd ever dated. Raphael was kind of tied to him; her odd brain had seen _him _first weeks ago when she thought she was going to die drowning. He was like her turtle Chance, as bad as it was to think because Chance the human and Raphael the turtle were nearly polar opposites.

"Hey, you still with us?" Mikey asked playfully as he nudged her, rousing Maeleyn from her 'slipping into sleep' phase and causing her to stiffen while the drowsiness receded. Her eyes flashed golden, and for a second Mikey just stared, but she yawned with her eyes closed, revealing gray eyes when they opened again. The littlest turtle brother eased his level of caution and settled back into the couch, eyeing the glowing TV box lazily.

"I'm tired," Maeleyn grumbled. "I might go to bed early tonight."

"Dudette, we still got, like, two hours before we go on patrol."

"But it's still _late_," she objected with a whine, shouldering him out of the way of her snuggle-made groove. "And besides papa Splinter…" she did air quotes around 'papa Splinter', "…won't let me play with the big boys yet."

"You can still play with Mikey," Raphael consoled, smacking his littlest brother affectionately in the back of the head because he hadn't done so in nearly four hours. "He's like the family runt."

"Just because I'm the sexiest and the youngest doesn't give you right to pick on me!" pouted Mikey as he stuck his tongue out. Yeah, a lot like Jezebelle, except not even the hint narcissistic unless she was panicking about her first impression on a rare date. Good humor though…for underground dwelling turtles that had little topside exposure. Raphael rolled his eyes.

"You wish you looked good. I guess now the big secret's out; you don't have to ask anymore when we decide to send you into undercover missions if we cross more aliens."

"Because I'm smooth? Like double-oh seven?" Mikey winked, clasping his hands together and pointing a finger out like an aimed gun. Raphael snorted. The things Mikey said…he almost wondered if Mikey broke out of the egg on his own or Don had even helped him out when they were just hatchlings.

"More like because you fit in with the other uglies, bro."

"Psh. I get it Raph. You won't say you love me in front of a chick but I love you too bro. I have to. Your face doesn't let me love you, but being my brother makes me-OW!" Mikey rubbed the back of his head, frowning. Raphael smirked.

"It doesn't matter that Raphael wouldn't say it in front of Maeleyn, Mikey," Donnie entered the conversation as he came from the kitchen with a soda, observing the abuse with slight amusement. Though the brawls between his youngest and second oldest brother could spell trouble for the Mr. Fix-it they did add some humor to the lair. "He won't say it in front of either of us unless we're dying or about to face a situation that looks like the end of the road." mused the genius.

"Hey I tell you guys!" Raphael defended himself. "Aren't you gonna help me out?" he asked dryly to Maeleyn. By now April had something scientific-like to explain Raphael didn't _need _to say he loved his family. It was non-verbal, and nearly universal, therefore understood. Maeleyn blinked her popping mascara enhanced eyes at him with false innocence, and then she laughed.

"I'm sorry," she smiled in the same dry tone he'd addressed her; "you think I'm romantic and mushy. Go try…hm…go try Leo. You and him seem to get along _very _well. Even if he beats you up. You like it that way though, don't you? A little rough?" Raphael couldn't believe what he just heard! Did she just insinuate he and Leo were romantically involved? Had to be out of her damned mind! Donnie spit the soda from his mouth in a wheezy, joyful bout of laughter as Mikey collapsed on the floor in a fit of giggles, rolling around and slapping the floor for reprieve. Raphael twitched, his instincts wanting to yank her off the couch or chase her like he did Mikey.

"I make it rough, don't take it rough." Raphael crossed his arms over his chest stubbornly. He _would _win this one. She'd crossed the line. Maeleyn arched an eyebrow in amusement. He may not be able to win the blue ribbon in the science fair but, of course, turn the conversation onto sex and he was a regular Einstein with quick retorts and everything!

"Don't you think it's hard to get rough with an inch?"

"Oh!" Mikey and Donnie cried, having enough air from laughing to egg the battle on like they would between he and Leo when training began. He scowled at his little brothers.

"Definitely more than an inch. Want to find out?" he hissed, narrowing his eyes at her. Maeleyn just smiled, giving a light hum of false agreement as she snatched a sai from his belt-he'd let her obviously, as there was nothing on his mind but beating her in this nonsensical argument- and twirled the tallest tip experimentally on one finger, the other hand holding the base and helping spin the weapon.

Donnie and Mikey paused when they heard Raphael offer. The air had changed again, just like when the two fought but it didn't reek of bloodlust this time. This was pure pheromones and slight annoyance. Like some sort of twisted, emotional game. He was a brave turtle; not one of them had thought of offering _anyone _or even uttering such a blatant invitation. She grinned, stopping the small whirl of the weapon.

"I don't do guys that are smaller than their weapon." Maeleyn waved the sai around idly, smirking. She'd leave him on that, too. Raphael felt his eye ridge twitch as she walked out, her tail swishing happily in her exit as she went to find something else to do. How in the _hell _did women do that? There had to be some sort of science or supernatural power behind the way they could mindfuck men and leave them feeling stupid in an argument. Don and Mikey giggled until he cast his eyes to them, and they instantly went quiet, quickly turning to other tasks before he threatened them with violence.

This was _not _done. He gave himself some time to cool off but it didn't help. Forty minutes later he was still wanting to look for her and ask her what the hell made her so cocky, such a smartass! Leatherhead was working with Donnie on something so he wouldn't be spied slipping out on that end, and Leo still hadn't come out of the dojo from Master Splinter's meditation session so all he had to worry about was Mikey. Said little brother was getting another snack-a-thon on in the kitchen. As bizarre as it was Raphael knew a small, confined stroll outside the front door to their home was where she'd gone.

His instincts told him so. Raphael opened the door and stomped out, scanning either side of the darkening tunnel for her. She was so going to get it! "What the shell is your problem?" he found her peeking out the grate balanced on tip-toe watching the passing cars and headlights make shadows and light on her face in the dark night. It was almost time for he and his brothers to go on patrol but this was a better priority than being punctual.

She turned to face him, scowling before letting the headlights paint her gray eyes in shimmering wrap of golden ribbons. He was so ruining her thought time. Raphael didn't care that he splashed through the nasty, trash-laden water to get next to her, his eyes glinting sharply again. "Do I have a huge target on my shell for you or somethin'? I've done nothin' to you and here you go puttin' me down. What's your problem? They fuck you up so much in that lab you don't have decency?"

That made her turn around, and Raphael folded his arms near his lower stomach, prepared for her tail to hit him. "I'm not putting you down!" Maeleyn growled back, aware that when Raphael spoke whoever battled him had to use the same tone of voice to be heard. "It was a joke. I joke and act like a bitch when I'm uncomfortable!" he stood there, not realizing he'd opened the floodgate to her bottled up emotional problems. So much for ranting and having another knock-down drag-out fight. "How can I be comfortable?" Maeleyn all but screamed at him as she balled her fists tightly, "I'm in a new body, miles away from my uncle who happens to be the only one I have in this whole damned city, and living with four males underground! I wasn't made to live underground! Do you know how hard it is to go from being normal to suddenly being tucked away and feeling like an alien, away from everyone else?"

He clapped a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from walking away in a pissy rage. "You think I don't know what it's like to feel distant from all those topside people? We've known our whole lives they'd never really get us. We can't change," he told her, his eyes narrowing, "you got changed. You knew what it was like to go up there and do whatever you want without havin' to cover up or worry about one of your bros' gettin' nixed!"

"Look," Maeleyn was crying now despite not wanting to. She missed her uncle, she missed her body. Most of her clothes they'd taken wouldn't fit and there was nothing more depressing to a woman than that. She missed the comfort of having someone to run to that would understand; if she tried to run to anyone now they would turn her away or shoot her dead all because she looked different. Looked like a freak. "I don't hate you and I don't hate your family. It's just hard…I'm sorry but…Jesus. I mean…all of this it's just shit. Just shit."

Raphael felt very awkward but by the time he'd moved his arms from his torso she was leaning into him. Wanting someone to hug her and let her cry like no one had let her do since her mutation. He hated crying women, he really did. Not even April cried to him! She cried against his plastron and he cautiously put a heavy arm around her. Holding a sobbing Mikey or a whining, wounded Mikey was different than holding her here, now.

"Are you uh…you okay now?"

"Yeah." Maeleyn wiped her eyes, rubbing the smudged mascara residue between her fingers as she exhaled. "Sorry…I guess that's just how it all came out."

"At least it was boo-hooing instead of a bitch fit." he didn't mind the scowling face or the punch she gave him. At least she was back to normal now. Well, as normal as she got for her.

"Why'd you, you know, let me cry on you?" shit. Can you say caught? Raphael had to think fast. She probably didn't know how to smell like a true turtle, so she was probably ignorant to the blatant pheromones.

"You're like another little sibling." he shrugged it off, turning fast to walk back to the lair. Get away from her, get away from her before she connects the dots! "I don't let my little brothers beat themselves up. Or get out of hand." he mused dryly. If one of them ever went insane he could definitely put them back in their place real fast, especially if they were a danger to one another. Maeleyn smiled a little.

"So you're the enforcer, the big brother, and the secret softie?" she tried, smirking. She so had him. Red handed! Raphael w_as _secretly mushy and emotional; he just didn't like people finding out; it meant weakness in his mind. He scowled at her.

"I am not a softie."

"Sure you are! You just don't like saying it."

"Am not!" he insisted.

"So you really let me cry on you because?" Maeleyn questioned. If not for being a rare gentleman and truly concerned then what was it?

"Seriously? You don't know? When I said you got changed I didn't say it was a _bad _change. In my opinion you'd be a total babe if you didn't have the smart mouth of a bitch." Maeleyn shook her head and chuckled dryly. His hand that went to smack her ass as part of his male defense for the gentle action was subdued by her tail and she flexed the tail muscles hard, squeezing his hand.

"Whatever you say. I think you're a liar." he growled as she flung his hand back, causing Raph to smack himself in the face. He snorted. She had some nerve! Did he just hear a click? Raphael quit the banter; let her continue in confident female chatter as he blocked all other sounds out. Something felt wrong.

_Pop_! "Get down!" Raphael shoved her into the brick wall when she proved too far ahead to snatch down and lie low. He grunted angrily; a dart in his arm. "Get back into the lair. We got a perimeter breach." Maeleyn felt panic flood her. Who was it? Someone just _shot _him? Shot Raphael, the badass, the Schwarzenegger turtle?

"C'mon." she shouldered what weight of his she could, Raphael insisting on a quick hobble of his own to make it to the door. It opened, much to his relief, but instead of rushing inside to his family they were armed and rushing out around him, Leatherhead included. Donnie or Leatherhead must've heard the alarm system on the inside and come out to investigate with the others following. "Don! Don I don't know what's wrong. Someone shot him!" the genius brother plucked the dart out of his brother's skin, analyzing the cartridge and the bloodied tip.

"It's a sedative," noted Don. "Sort of like…" he trailed off, looking at Leatherhead whose true crocodilian responses had been activated. His friend had been right. Don looked into the thin yellow slits of his friend's eyes and helped Maeleyn prop Raphael up against the wall. "It's a hunting sedative."

"You!" Leatherhead's jaws trembled as he snapped them open and shut, displaying his sharp white teeth. "We killed you."

"Not good enough, ya croc! Me, Besty and Amelia are back for the rematch."

"Dude, the Hunter's back!" Mikey paused his whirling nunchucks to honestly look at the slightly disfigured Australian. After being tackled by Leatherhead and submerged in deep water from the first run in that couldn't have been but four months ago he was back! Although he was missing a few pieces of skin and had hard purple scars running across his face he was back; his arms were marked up, too.

"That's right, turtle boy. An a right nice zoo sheila told me a female turtle had been runnin' around. I figured why not make a second trip to bag all of ya?"

"A zoo sheila?" Don asked him, his grip on his bo staff tightening. Someone knew about Maeleyn and they were freely spreading her disappearance? This was bad. And worse, a zoo was already looking for her! "Who?" it was unlikely the whacko would tell him but the genius figured he was arrogant enough to hunt them down when he _knew _they knew the large crocodile that had bested him the first time so this might not be too far from what he'd be willing to do.

"Beautiful thing, a blond. Her name's Rose." he cocked his gun, the seemingly nice conversation ending as he raised the barrel to Raphael's propped form.

"Touch him and I will put my foot in your ass!" Maeleyn hissed, standing up and pushing herself forward past Michelangelo. The hunted pulled his gun back slightly, grinning.

"So you talk too, do ya darling?"

"Yeah," she shrugged coldly, eyeing him with extreme distrust and tension in her. "And I'll only tell you once so you better listen." Leatherhead shouldered Raph, knowing Donatello and Leo were already backing up towards tunnels that would lead the Hunter away from their home and on another chase they could win. After all, who knew the tunnels better than the people that lived in it?

"Come closer, sheila, tell me all about you." the Hunter teased, ghosting the gun named Besty near Maeleyn's human locks. She hissed at him. Her eyes flickered golden, and the flicker swirled to assume total control of her gray orbs. "Crikey! Your eyes! Amelia I think our shiela's defected!"

"Oh I'm fine." Maeleyn promised as she stepped forward. Something in her had snapped. All that anger about not being able to get to Rilien, of changing, of Raphael not being honest or open about himself, the feeling of being contained even though the wide underground was very breathable, had compounded and finally escaped. "But you won't be." he dared hurt the one of the people nice enough to take her in, to accept her, so he was going to pay!

One of her reptilian friends triggered a smoke bomb and before she could grasp his nasty human throat in her hand someone had snatched her back and they were running. "Dudette you are fierce!" Mikey whispered to her in awe as Maeleyn gripped the sides of her head. She was still very angry, and didn't want to hurt one of her friends. They had stopped in some sort of tunnel room where various pathways of the sewers interconnected; a dry, safe haven for the time being.

"No!" she scratched Mikey's hand coming to rest on her shoulder. "Don't touch me!" Maeleyn sank to her knees. She was _so_ angry! Everything in her pulsed to beat something, to be angry, to kill. With a harsh groan she tucked her head as best she could towards her knees, shivering at the sheer force of her rage turned into energy. Scratching Mikey had felt _good _and that scared her; the smell of blood was like a second wind and that scared her more.

"Please, Maeleyn you have to calm down." Leatherhead soothed as he wrapped his tail around the side of her. "I know what it's like to be so angry. Do not let that consume you."

"There's so much…so much…make it stop."

"Calm down and it will stop."

"He hurt my friends. He hurt my _friends_!" Leatherhead felt her pounce off of his chest and scale to a higher point, no doubt waiting to ambush the man they could all hear coming. Maybe the human had figured they would stand still to protect their wounded, or would soon come to a dead end. The red-topped robot named Amelia came out first and they paused. Where was he? Why was he sending that out first?

"Keep your guard up, guys." Leo cautioned, raising his swords. Maeleyn crouched low like a tigress on an out jutting of the wall, staring down with her haunting gold eyes. Amelia released a large net over the crouched Leatherhead and the instant their crocodilian friend went to snap the steel-edged threads electricity outlined the net, trapping him in a painful dome of live electricity until he collapsed.

"That's for last time, big guy. Now on to your little friends." Raphael, with Leatherhead as his body guard, had been set behind Donatello and Michelangelo when the robot emerged from the darkness. "Where's ya sheila?"

"Right here!" Maeleyn jumped down and landed on all fours, growling at the human. The Hunter smiled at her rigid tail and clawed fingers digging into the stone floor. "What can I do for you?" she asked sarcastically, eyeing him like juicy prey. He smiled, and the robot scuttled back behind him, bleeping all the way.

"You can come with me, darlin'. Once Rose sees you I get my money and she gets to have her deal with the alien man."

"Alien man? Who are you talking about?" Leonardo asked, pointing his katana at the man. The Hunter was hardly interested in that one. He wanted the female, the man-made one that could reproduce.

"One of Rose's associates, if ya have to know. Now, sheila, let's take a walk, shall we?" she didn't move, hissing at him with her sharp teeth bared. "I figured you wouldn't. Well, how 'bout a nap then?" the second he raised the barrel she lunged. In Maeleyn's mind he was not only aiming to shoot her but maybe shoot Raphael or one of the others, as their natural instinct was to stop that gun. She would go for the source.

Maeleyn gave a roar and pounced on him, forcing the gun-wielding hand back against the stone floor. She snapped her jaws, digging her claws into the fabric of the clothes on his chest. Some blood bubbled up and stained his hunting clothes dark. "Did I say somethin' to make you mad, sheila?" asked the Hunter incredulously as he grinned. The way she was positioning the gun, forcing it back, he could shoot that other reptile in the foot. Maybe the bullet would travel all the way up through his head; then he could take that one back as a trophy.

She jerked the gun away from Raphael's unconscious body and tightened her tail around the leg of the man. If she couldn't kill him or change his mind with sheer bestial force she'd make her strength known through other means. The Hunter realized his opportunity. Maeleyn, in her wild rage intent on staring him down and possibly crushing him, had put the gun near her right shoulder. He pulled the trigger.

"Ah!" blood oozed from the wound and her skin burned. The Hunter kicked her off and she struggled to stand despite the burning pain and the blood now running down her arm. "Back off or I shoot right between the eyes!" he took a step forward, liking that Maeleyn took one back as he angled the gun to keep his promise, putting the barrel right between her eyes that were slowly going from yellow to gray. Because his attention was focused on the female turtle and her visible protectors he didn't see Raphael behind him shaking off the weak sedative. It had been impossible for the Hunter to calculate a truly effective sedative since he hadn't actually knocked one of the turtles unconscious last time, or handled them like he did Leatherhead, and he couldn't risk using the sedatives he'd used on the big croc or he'd kill the interesting specimen.

He gave a sharp, deep cry of agony, falling forward. A sai stood out perfectly aligned to his spinal cord. Donatello and the others could breathe a little easier knowing the enemy had been quieted. Maeleyn plopped down on the floor, too shaky to stand; her arm was nearly all red now with the blood. Raphael himself was woozy and dizzy, looking somewhat like he'd just rolled out of bed. "Keep them here, Leo. I'll go get the slider; there's no other way we could carry Leatherhead without it." the eldest brother nodded and helped Raphael sit so the sedative could wear off.

"Here you go dudette." Mikey had slipped off his bandanna to use as a vice like Donnie had taught them to stop the bleeding. His mask was quickly changing colors but they weren't too far from the lair. "Looks like it exited…" though he couldn't find the bullet he could see the hole evident in her shell. "And your shell is, like, flaking or something." he gently teased the half-detached pieces of her gray shell from the attached portion and Maeleyn watched them fall. Within five minutes Don was back, Leo and Mikey helped him load Leatherhead into the vehicle.

"You guys got everything here? I'm gonna get LH back to the lair."

"We're good." Leo nodded, accepting the arm Raphael had put around his neck and helping his brother stand. Mikey gingerly slid an arm under Maeleyn's legs and picked her up like a bride. Donatello took off; the vehicle designed to hover, and raced through the tunnels to get their big friend home.

"I was shot in the shoulder, not my leg."

"Yeah but I know walking makes the wound hurt like a bitch. You think I haven't been shot before?" Maeleyn stayed quiet, letting Mikey remove from kneeling and stand. Just what had they been through? She couldn't see any wounds to indicate a shot on him but that didn't mean he hadn't been shot at.

"C'mon Mike, let's get them home."

"What about Hunter dude?"

"We'll have to come back." Leonardo grabbed the sai jutting out of the Hunter's back and tucked it in his own belt, helping Raphael out of the area as Mikey kept checking the rate of blood flow on Maeleyn's wound.

* * *

Rose was finally able to rest when her hired help made his way to the lab. Bishop hadn't cleared extra help outside those who already knew the situation but Rose had done some digging of her own and knew this guy was good. If he'd bagged that large crocodile Bishop had experimented on not even four months ago he could at least get her sample DNA of Maeleyn's again. Gustav was ready to go as of yesterday and now Bishop wanted to work on 'back up' Maeleyns should the original get terminated in the nasty war he was building up to. He wanted as many genetic mishaps as he could have-fully functioning-by the time he planned to storm Shredder's stronghold and ransack it.

Whether he was going in there just for Rilien or what other experiments the hiding alien had he wasn't sure yet. He did know as a member of the EPA it was his duty to rid the world of aliens, and Ch'rell, or Shredder as he was known to the many peoples' lives he ruined, was one of those at the top of his list. Many planets and galaxies wanted to see him exiled. Both were waiting to see the Hunter stumble in from the personal plane that had dropped him off to Area Fifty-One when he'd escaped the sewers. "That red one got me good but he's got lazy aim. Got the sheila's blood on the rifle, though." he offered over Besty whose mouth gleamed with a small circle of blood matching the close-range shot he'd made.

Rose let the Hunter hold it as she swabbed all of the blood from it with a Q-tip and bagged it for DNA analysis in the other department. Finally. Now, even though Bishop was mad at her for involving someone else, she'd get her request. Probably. "Your services are appreciated. Ms. Chaplin, escort him to the infirmary."

"Yes sir. Then, after, may we talk?"

"I suppose, since you _did _get me my DNA."

"Thank you, sir." Rose took the elbow of the man that preferred to be only known as the Hunter and escorted him to the infirmary where they would treat the stab wound. She returned soon after, looking at Bishop with her large brown-black eyes. "Now, Mr. Bishop, if we could talk…"

"Of course, Ms. Chaplin. What about?"

"My brother…I want to see him. Please? He's been thinking I was dead for the past twelve years. I want him to know I'm okay."

"Frankly I'm surprised he didn't see through it. He did ask me to get you out of there, you know. Staging your death was just a way he didn't expect me to fulfill my promise. And now he's returning his side of the deal."

"Giving you those specimen?" Rose had seen them come in all shapes and sizes behind the cold cages. Just like the Foot this base was underground, too, and they had carved out an especially large room just to hold them all. Their cages were categorized by specie group and branded with the same number they were, but more often than not cages were being melted down and destroyed when the experiment failed to last. They needed Rilien Specter, or his one successful mutation to keep their specimen alive. Something about that female turtle made her last, a strain of DNA they didn't have. Bishop nodded at her curious assumption and the blond hugged the clipboard she always carried to her chest.

She wanted her brother, to see him smile after the many years she'd known him to cry at her grave he'd made. "I'll make you a deal, Ms. Chaplin. Let Gustav go hunting in a few days since the Hunter claims the turtles to be in such a state of disarray and they'll take time to calm down before they go out of hiding, if he doesn't perform like he should with the target put him in the zoo."

"But sir, we promised him not to, he wanted to be free while he's still alive. He doesn't have that much-"

"I don't care what he wants, Ms. Chaplin. He's an animal. He's meant to serve his purpose and nothing else. Put him in the zoo if he fails and have him 'attack' you during a debut with the media. I guarantee the Shredder and his army will come sniffing for such a creature and they should bring you to the hideout to handle him."

"And then I'll see my brother?"

"He works there, doesn't he?"

"Yes sir. But what about your mole?" all this time she thought Kier was the mole when actually Bishop had two: Kier and Chaplin. He was using them both quite nicely.

"He'll be there to give you Gustav. He's there to do as I say so he shouldn't get in your way."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome, Ms. Chaplin. Go check on the experiments and see if we have to clean again."

"Yes sir."

* * *

"Run that by me again?" Chaplin crossed his arms as the Foot grunt told him for the third time about this large…_bape_, as he called it, kill three Foot soldiers and stared him in the face grim as death.

"There was this large bull-ape creature and it killed the three you sent me with!" Bishop had told him to speak about Gustav, as the large animal would be a distraction for them to slip in and steal Rilien away soon. Shredder, as this 'master' was called, was constantly looking for large creatures to combat these male turtles he kept hearing about around the facility. Large male turtles that apparently stood in their way. He could only hope Maeleyn had found them, some odd thing going off in her blood to make her want to seek out other turtles; if she did then he knew she'd be safe with them.

After all, the Shredder had yet to best these creatures. "It was massive! Horns on its head, finger-apparent hooves for hands, no tail, fuzzy like an ape! It was definitely a genetic experiment…"

"Obviously," Chaplin rolled his eyes. "But how could they have made such a thing?"

"Who?" asked Kier curiously. Did this group already know Bishop?

"A rival of ours, grunt. No one you need to know about. And it just disappeared?" inquired Chaplin curiously. He was beginning to smell Bishop.

"Yes," Kier nodded, "but I didn't see the person. The creature just started walking away like it was controlled or something." that made sense, Chaplin thought. Bishop would try to control it without having to actually _handle _it. Probably some chip or something strapped to it. He felt only a little better about ferrying what surviving experiments they had to the man; at least the Shredder wouldn't kill them. And the fewer experiments they had at the facility the smaller their chances of having an inside mutiny decreased.

Well, on the animal front, anyways. Chaplin, as devoted to Karai as he was, disproved of the Shredder. He was too coarse and threatening to science. Stockman had been constantly belittled and even mutilated for his failures when science, itself was such a volatile thing. He'd never forgiven the Japanese man for killing his sister, either. She went from a bright-eyed, eager apprentice learning from him to lying deathly still just outside the Shredders office as he threw things around in another rage brought on by his loss against the turtles.

Chaplin _wanted _to see this large scale plot of an animal takeover go wrong, to have the Shredder lose everything. Chaplin, himself, had lost his parents shortly after turning twenty and he'd lost his sister at twenty-four. The following twelve years of having no one but himself was painful, and lonely. His delusions of having Karai respect him were getting thinner, too. The Shredder, he realized, would never let them be together as long as he was around.

Karai would still be a trained assassin and he would still be the obligated scientist. They would be kept apart like some cruel fairytale. "Alright…"Chaplin sighed, waving Kier off. He'd heard enough, and it did indeed sound like Bishop but paying respect to the bargain struck between the two he would simply tell his superior a possible threat-perhaps the Utroms trying to nix him from their home world, or perhaps an alien race connected to the Battle Nexus-was making large animals like they were trying to. "Go back to your post. Check and see how Rilien is doing with the experiments."

"Yes sir." the grunt left and Chaplin turned to his work desk to look at the large list of specimen they had already created, the names with lines through them had died. They were all numbered, too, and numbers were crossed out when that version died. So far the Foot had attempted to make three cat-human hybrids, four bat-human hybrids, a kangaroo-wallaby hybrid, various fox hybrids (six so far), a snake-human hybrid (that didn't end well), and a chameleon-lizard hybrid. That was just from his team, too. Stockman and his team were making breeds all their own, some science had never tried. Out of the total eighteen mutants he'd made only three of them were alive at the moment, and the last of the current bat hybrids was barely hanging on to life.

His healthy wallaby hybrid and the latest cat experiment had been sent onto the pickup for Bishop two days ago. Chaplin was making doubles of everything just so no one could track his shipments, giving both the clone and the original the same number tattoo. _What now_? He combed his fingers through his fiery red hair, thinking of where to go from here. Rilien was nearing completion of his key and the Shredder was more impatient now than ever. All of his secrets, his work, would soon be in their hands. After getting Rilien's work Chaplin had a small fear that he would become obsolete, and that he would be killed.

He laced his hands together in a silent prayer. _Bishop…whatever you're trying to pull, do it fast. We need to take him out soon. _If they didn't the whole world would be dominated by crazy animal hybrids. Humans would then be obsolete, and an alien would rule a world of animals.

Rilien pulled himself up from squatting by the last cage, removing the needle from the animal-human subject. When he wasn't making the skeleton to the key he was mixing up nutrition shots for all of the neglected animals. Female associates he'd yet to meet or see made sure the animals were clean and showered regularly so infection didn't set in, but it was obvious this was no longer a simple creation task. Most of the animals had defensive wounds on them, like they were learning to fight. However they were being taught the techniques didn't ward off death; most if not all of the subjects were wasting away.

His knowledge was doing this. As much as Rilien hated to see them all die he knew he couldn't let them live and suffer more at the hands of a tolitarian madman. It was better this way. Stockman was constantly bringing in sedated subjects, new ones fresh off the table and with parts of their arms or legs, even their torsos or shoulders wrapped to hide the tattoos that would soon be logged for record keeping. True Rilien didn't have all of his original files but he knew the key components to keep them from living well enough to be used as a weapon; he was doing as best he could to make the death painless.

Most of the animals died sleeping, especially the cat breeds. They slept so much the disease was rushed through their system and they were dead within the hour. The more active species grew quiet, too, such high consumption of energy rocketing the bad strain's multiplication in the system. White sheets were placed over the cages to be melted down and the bodies to be dumped. He felt so low, so sick.

A Foot guard thumped him hard on the back to stop his morose gazing and he knew it was Kier. He'd smile if it wouldn't be suspicious. After a very late dinner Rilien was escorted back to his room by his brother and stared again at the model of Maeleyn's jacket zipper. He was about a half-week away from completion and he wouldn't have much time until they realized what he'd been doing wasted time. They could kill him for it.

That thought scared him most; that he would die and Maeleyn would know nothing of it. He wished desperately to talk to her somehow. Rilien rubbed his burning eyes and logged onto the computer, checking what he had of his formulas and work. He couldn't go off of this much longer; eventually he would have to find a way to get his files back, if not to keep himself alive long enough to tell Maeleyn he was okay. The genius Specter sighed and hung his head.

What else could he do? His brain was ate up with ways to stop this madness, to help Maeleyn, and to get Kier out of the hands of this madman. If the Shredder figured out who he was, why he was here, he would lose his brother. He'd much rather end his life than lose his family. Kier and Maeleyn had suffered so much with Serene not being in their lives; they didn't deserve to suffer anymore. Not even on his behalf.

The Foot guard assisted him into bed and crudely threw the blankets over his body. It was Kier's way of telling him to sleep. Rilien let his eyes fall as he fell asleep without a problem, too tired to fight it anymore.


	9. Chapter 9

Enigma

**AN: Thanks to **Candlelit1**for reviewing chapter eight. It was very appreciated. For Labor Day I'm updating because the college is closed today and I didn't have work due to me working the previous three days. My mind is already consumed with ideas for Jezebelle's story but this one is coming along, too. I know where I'm going with it :). Enjoy everyone! Thanks for all the reviews thus far.**

It had taken almost two weeks or so for her wound to be healed, and Maeleyn gave an experimental flex of her arm at Don's request so the 'doctor' of the group could record her with the nearly full tube of Neosporin Don had put on it in the first few days she couldn't even use her right hand without it totally giving out on her, cringing and trembling in pain. That sucked the most because she was right handed. Maeleyn hated the idea of people having to help her so much and highly resented the fact Mikey and the others were helping her with simple tasks. She felt too lost and clumsy trying to use her left hand because she disregarded it so much.

The girl was having intense mental distress at the fact she had been wounded. Maeleyn was proud, though; she'd helped save what could've been Raph's life. Or Leo's, or Mikey's, maybe even Donnie's. That was a feat in itself; these guys were trained to kill if they wanted, and she'd saved them so easily. True she'd been taken over by some savage DNA melded with her own human and apparently turtles genes but it had worked. Don was especially worried, like Leatherhead, at her surprising flare of rage and they monitored her DNA and emotional activity daily while she was healing.

Now that the fear was gone and over the spike of rage, the flare indicating total animal takeover of her bipedal form was basically nonexistent. She was Maeleyn again. The fact that the spike wasn't around made Donnie and Leatherhead worry. What if Maeleyn had a dormant level of animosity or had now shown some sort of threshold that-if she crossed it again—would soon cause her to lose her humanity? Maeleyn showed no fear to be encouraged by the worrying scientific brains of the bunch; on the contrary she felt very normal, very calm…almost giddy.

Why having that explosion of rage that _happened _to escape in the mannerisms the fiercer DNA animal felt just like screaming into a pillow, which she did when she was human. In that sense Maeleyn felt just like herself again and a tad closer to human Maeleyn, which she would never probably be again. The giddiness was just a side effect of having that pressure off her body, her mind. Things—even though she hated to think of it like this because it was _very _unlike her to think so optimistically, or in such a cliché way—looked sunny. Her disposition didn't last long though; she almost felt guilty about being so happy when Rilien was still so far away in her, still in so much danger.

At least she had her dominant hand back.

"Looks like today's your lucky day," Don noted as he pulled back from the small medical book he'd kept on his family. It had what medicines they took to best, a recording of their vitals in various stages of illness and thinks like that; Maeleyn was a new page. "Your hand is fully functioning. Stretch your shoulder for me, very slow. Up…that's good. Now put it down. Try a circle; let me see how it's affected your range of motion." Maeleyn did as she was told, very slowly to let the genius see if she was truly ready to be independent again.

Don smiled, closing the book. "You're good." with glee Maeleyn unwound the loosely hanging bandage on her shoulder and dropped it in the trash. Freedom, at last! She paused at seeing Raphael walk out of the dojo, towel draped over his neck as he finished cleaning off the last bit of sweat from his workout. Though she'd taken much longer to heal than he they were the only two _not _talking about her 'crazy spike' that could've very well saved his life.

Was Raphael grateful? Yes. He could see the turmoil in her eyes. Raph knew where she was coming from; wondering whether or not you're okay after having that first truly angry outbreak. Wondering if you're ever going to slip back into it in the blink of an eye and do something you'd really regret. He'd been there…and he'd come _back _from there with the help of his family.

The best she had right now, even with the lack of relation and blood, was them. Her real family was who knew where? Maeleyn didn't like to talk about her family…wherever they were. They all knew one was held captive by the Shredder but where was her mom? Her dad?

"Looks like Doctor Don let you go, huh?"

"Yep." Maeleyn smiled proudly, wiggling the shoulder that had been so bandaged and contained it almost felt absent or numbed. It was a great relief to have it back. She didn't bother looking at him; if she did his eyes would haunt her. Apparently both of them wanted to talk about the oddness the Hunter had evoked in her own mutated body but neither wanted to admit it. Trying to talk about it with his family around just made it odd. Trying to escape and be by themselves only left Mikey to make sexual accusations and annoying, immature songs about _why _they were alone; it had started when the orange bandanna-wearing turtle realized Raphael and Maeleyn had been _alone _when the Hunter struck.

Splinter moseyed contently through the kitchen, fetching another cup of tea after his noon meditation session. The rat father was quite at peace with the addition to a female in the lair; while Maeleyn could be considered vulnerable and subjected to protection due to the male instincts of his sons Splinter found she had a steely determination and morals to match. She wasn't afraid to put her foot down and kill the noise when Raphael and Mikey, or even Raphael and Leo, got into a quarrel. He found it hard not to give a small chuckle of amusement; his anger-prone son and the female wouldn't maintain eye contact around him, and not even the others.

It was funny to the old rat how they were pretending they felt nothing. He could see it in both of their eyes and wouldn't press. This was a new stage for the entire family. It would take time for adjustment and new beginnings. For new paths to form out of the growing grasses, and in turn for new grasses to replace the dead covering the paths. Maeleyn was, as far as the rat new—and his sons for that matter—the only living, sane thing genetic war had created.

Previous _things _they had fought created by Bishop or the Shredder were grotesque, possibly unintelligent, or deteriorating as they stood. He moved back to his room, listening to the fading chatter of the TV and Michelangelo having a one-sided conversation predicting and commenting on whatever show it was he watched and to Donatello working on his whims. Splinter could sense the tension and weight of the 'Rilien' issue bearing down on her mind. It brought him personal grief to see her suffering, to see her so angry and so stuck—somewhat like Raphael before he finally gave in and let Splinter effectively channel the massive anger hiding in him. She was still young as a kunoichi; barely a month training with them but he was highly contemplating an initiation ceremony to ease her mind.

She would be a Hamato, and the celebration would probably distract her from the fact her uncle was still missing, and that she was still too young as a kunoichi to rush alone head-first into battle. As painful as it was, thought the rat, they had to wait and plan. Maybe just wait, as they had the very first time they fought the Shredder. The ceremony was a little too far off for Splinter to rely on it as his only reprieve in store for the mutant hybrid so he decided the oncoming night would be special; she would go out on patrol.

* * *

Gustav pulled his hairy, strong body onto the rooftop and stayed in the crouch he'd started off the night in, as it was safer. With what intelligence he had the animal scowled. They treated him civilly enough but still insisted showing blatant caution by having an all-black-clad figure follow him around wearing two belts of ammo for his tranquilizer gun. _Go figure_, thought the bull-ape hybrid as he sniffed the air. Those creatures were close.

Bishop, using what blood samples of the turtles he had left, had simulated with that blood what pheromones the creatures would release and trained Gustav to that smell. The bull was only thrown off slightly; he could smell a spicy-sweet scent mixing with that unmistakable male pheromones. _Female…_he narrowed his eyes at the sight of five figures on a roof about twenty meters away. Kier was tight with anticipation and worry; would the Foot know he was playing as Bishop's man tonight and not theirs?

He'd gotten used to the Foot costume…almost a month or so in it, and now he felt very exposed without it on. If they found out who he was…his last name…everything could go up in smoke! Kier felt somewhat scared; those turtles were real! That meant all the tales about how good their fighting was, was real too. Kier was the Gulliver in the Houyhnhnms country that was Manhattan. Such a feat as talking, walking animals was startling to the navy man.

Sure he knew it was possible and even the government could have secret experiments of their own but the thought that animals were given astounding muscle mass or the intelligence to function like humans was terrifying. Kier felt as if humans were quickly becoming obsolete, and the only reason he was around was because he had a tranquilizer gun and the man that had made Gustav needed a human he could trust. Someone with something to lose in this mission. "Wait…" Kier put a hand on the beast's arm and didn't bother looking at how pitifully small his hand was in comparison to Gustav's large arm, "let them talk. They won't be able to react as fast." the bape settled down, eyeing his prey hungrily.

He was doing this for Rose, Gustav thought. Like some cliché watered-down mishap in King Kong's lineage he vied for the blonde woman. Maybe it was because she was the first thing he saw when he was brought into the world. She was beautiful. But she didn't want him.

_Still_, thought the "bape" as he was being called by Rose, Bishop, by everyone that didn't feel like repeating 'Gustav' as if he were unworthy of a human name, or as if it simply exhausted them, _if I do good maybe she'll see me a bit better_. In all actuality Gustav knew he could just hold her down and take her if he wanted but he felt too intelligent for that; he wanted to have it mutual. So, here he was…an animal hunting animals. He felt sick. The animal knew, however, he had maybe a week or two at best to keep living so he'd rather do something to conjure up a truly good memory before he left.

It was evident in the daily analysis by Rose his organs were already shutting down. He took off across the roof, aware that the thudding slaps of his heavy hooves across the rooftop would make a noise to startle his prey. He gave a bull-like bellow and charged forward. The only objective on his mind was to isolate the female from the males and bring her in.

* * *

She felt electrified by the cool Manhattan air and absolutely bubbly because she was no longer confined underground. Excluding her escape from the facility a mere month ago this was her first true visit outside in her new body. It felt great! They'd done about a quarter of the usual patrol circle, bringing them to the east side, when the brothers took the time to educate her and point out what was good about this side of Manhattan. Maeleyn felt like some sort of wide-eyed child seeing Manhattan for the first time; seeing it as a human with all the restraints gone, and seeing it as a mutant using pure stealth and coupling that rare moment of peace, of beauty with the surrounding night was something totally different but something to appreciate.

It was getting easier and easier to see how every experience had a separate side, a new story just being discovered when she re-experienced it as a mutant. Maeleyn, as herself, was beginning to see where she stopped being human and embraced the perks of her mutant body, and vice versa. She felt like she was finally harmonizing herself and no longer questioned 'this or that?'. She was shaky on her first few roof crossings but soon she found the nearly fluid way to put her body to the other side. The ninja training she was undergoing certainly helped.

After eight rooftops she felt like a pro, but had Mikey catch her when she faltered. Don wasn't against helping either, pulling her up a few times from what could've been a nasty fall with his bo staff. All in all, she was getting the hang of it. It was obvious to the brothers she liked being out and about much more than being confined like they were used to. They were still reminding themselves that while she did cop an attitude sometimes, and while she did exude nice moments where she really felt like family, she was still different.

They were beginning to think less of that though. April and Casey were human but they were good friends. Turtles in human skin. She—while Maeleyn clearly looked to still be battling the 'human versus hybrid' personal controversy—could be anything she pleased to them. Mutated enough to be considered their family, but human enough in her mind to be distant.

She was just her, and they wouldn't melt their brains over trying to consider her one thing or the other.

"But dude, no," Mikey was talking to her as Raphael kept a wary eye out on the west side of the rooftop. Something didn't feel right about tonight. Maybe he was a little paranoid since the Hunter came back; it was no lie Maeleyn was a good prize for turtle-hunting freaks to have, turtle-hunting freaks that wouldn't mind he and his brothers dead either, but tonight didn't feel as light and happy as Maeleyn and Mikey made it. Something in him called to be alert.

He was especially territorial of his family, and Maeleyn being the new 'technically family' member made the territorial feeling intensify. It went beyond having her be confused and angry, trying to take that passionate, possibly psychotic but hot revenge like some unafraid heroine. More or less it went back to _them _two weeks ago, to her being an un-courted female and he a waiting male. Had it not been for the Hunter Raphael would've ended their little emotional talk with some emotions of his own, and they wouldn't have been bad ones either. Because conversation in the lair couldn't easily be ignored, what with the way the echoes went on the stone and whatnot, Raphael recalled her light but disappointed chat with Mikey as she sorted all the things she could no longer use due to her new body weeks ago.

Lip gloss had been on that list. "My lips just aren't the same," she'd said, "they're not human anymore. They're thin and I don't even have a lip _shape_…it's just a lip, and the only way I know it's there is because that part flexes when I talk and smile." he thought her lips looked just fine. He'd kiss them, and was pretty sure Mikey would've made a similar joking comment had he not walked in and pissed her off by saying 'bitch, bitch, bitch.' and things of that nature. Did he have self control? Yes.

Did he use it? No. Raph liked seeing her mad. Her anger was one of the only things that got her eager for a fight. At the proposition of a fight he thought back to the want and desire he had for her; he'd deny it in the face of his brothers but her? She was no holds bar. Hell, she probably wanted one of them too, just didn't know what to think of herself since she was so used to being human before her mutation. His raw animal nature that was dying to escape when they'd tussled on the floor and she was trapped beneath him where his hands could roam her body reminded him that as human as they seemed, they couldn't fight their nature, or the fact that she was female. One of them. His hands would have, had she not been trying to claw his face off.

They were a love-hate couple, he realized. Or, as Mikey like to put it before he got hit, in denial. Whatever it was, it worked for Raph. "And Usagi looked so weird wearing sunglasses but I guess it worked for him. Gen liked them." Raph drew back to the present and scowled at his little brother trying to mimic the stoic look on Usagi's face. She probably had no idea what the hell he was talking about but the story, and his faces he made while telling it, were amusing and she laughed.

Stupid little brother.

Unfortunately for Raphael's liking they were all relaxed…except him. He felt like a tightly wound string ready to snap. "HYAEEEOOO!" the cry nearly snapped his spine with the ferocity and volume as it echoed in the night. Raphael jumped up and nearly imprinted the bandage wrap design on his sai to his palm with how hard he was squeezing his weapon. That odd cry reminded him of the wild rage of the bulls they saw on TV when talking about the annual Bull Run in Spain or Mexico…wherever the hell it was. He wasn't so focused on being geographically correct as he was being prepared.

The large creature landed with a snort on their roof and he backed up into his brothers, knowing it'd be best to attack as a group when he saw the size of the animal. "Well," Don said as he took his bo from his back, "guess that cuts the curiosity as to what Bishop did with the blood bag."

"Doesn't it?" the bull-ape asked as he glared at them, finally rising off his hooves to stand nearly ten feet in the air like some sort of Goliath among them. Mikey just stared.

"You talk?" nearly everyone asked in disbelief. Gustav narrowed his eyes. Did they think they were the only intelligent animals around? While they may only know of those they lived with Bishop was quickly making more to match them, though no turtles had yet to be created just for them. Except her, but she was somewhat serendipitous.

"Yes," sneered Gustav. "And I have a name. Gustav. I also have a request…get out of my way." giving them no time to prepare he sank to a four-legged stance again and charged into the cluster of them. Kier had yet to come out of the darkness, two feet from the building ledge, with the gun shaking in his hand. Rilien's e-mail suddenly flashed behind his wide eyes.

_Big trouble. Maeleyn taken, Maeleyn changed. Bi-animal hybrid. Apparently turtle. DNA project gone wrong. Escaped. In Manhattan._

The shaking of the gun intensified. Could it be? God…was he really so stupid? Was Kier actually sent out on a mission for the good of his little brother to hand over his only daughter? He felt spurned, duped, and just short of sabotaging Bishop. He'd played right into that man's hands, hadn't he?

What was he to do? If he didn't stop Gustav the bape would give Bishop Maeleyn (or what could be Maeleyn, he was almost sure it was her). If he did stop Gustav and put him under massive tranquilization that would be just what Bishop had planned so the Foot would be more inclined to take Rose and the dying experiment. Either way he was doing just what Bishop wanted.

Bishop was using Maeleyn, Gustav, Rose, and him for a bridge that he could walk across into Foot territory. He kept the gun level to the beast that now had Maeleyn hoisted over one shoulder like a cliché King Kong or kidnapper fighting off with one largely swinging hand the male turtles trying to save her. Kier paused and pulled back from the scope. They were all so graceful, and royally pissed. That red wearing one especially.

While his brothers had been knocked back or still recovered from their collision against the roof he'd stabbed his sais into the arm of the bape and hung on. He bared his teeth and growled like a true animal. The alpha male fighting another male for territory. Maybe even for his mate. Was that Maeleyn's boyfriend? Kier couldn't dare ask, that would compromise too much.

"_Shoot him! Shoot him now!_" Kier jumped. He'd nearly forgotten Bishop could see everything he could, and comment. There was no complaining against that. Whatever Gustav was doing, maybe in the way he was holding her, was causing the female turtle to cry out in pain. It could very well be that the sheer grip and hand size of Gustav was crushing some of her ribs.

He open fired. Shot after shot went into the back of the beast. Gustav, who was so focused on the turtles and keeping them _down _as he got away with the target didn't turn until the fifth dart landed in his back. Gustav dropped Maeleyn and growled at the unseen Kier. The tranquilizers had been made to shut down an animal three times the size and weight of Leatherhead, so a few more would have the hybrid snoozing on the roof. She landed with a thunk on the roof and gave a cry.

Damn if she wasn't unlucky! It hurt to breathe, and that large bumbling _thing _had caused significant pressure on her already fragile half-shell. It was looser now than ever, and had many more cracks. Blood oozed from the torn skin and she gasped for air. Her sides hurt. "Raph. _Raph_!" Don snapped the snarling, angry brother of his out of the 'killing mode'. "We need to get Maeleyn back to the lair. She's bleeding. I think he tore her shell."

"Or broke a rib," Leo noted, glancing at the impressions their own bodies had made in the side of the building. The craters left by the impact of Gustav's hooves from landing on the roof spoke of just how dangerous his bodily impact could be.

"Maybe a couple," Don breathed as he motioned for Leo to help lift Maeleyn. "Be careful, Leo. We don't know if they're bruised, fractured or broken." his mind was in a panic though. What if time was a factor? What if one of her ribs had punctured something internally?

"Mikey," Raphael looked upon his little brother with eyes full of rage he'd yet to see before, even with an argument involving Leo. It scared the little brother, the wild fire in his elder brother's eyes. He felt like someone had just inadvertently signed a death wish. "You, me. Animal control." his blood-tipped sais glinted in the moonlight and Mikey gripped his nunchucks, as they acted as buffers for the two brothers carrying the targeted turtle.

"I don't think big dude's getting up…so what are we trying to control Raph?"

"Someone had to fire the darts, didn't they? Quit askin' stupid questions and keep yer eyes open nitwit!" why hadn't they seen the person on the roof? Who was it that had saved their shells? Why? Who were they working for? God help the man or men trying to wax them, Raph thought, because there would be bloodshed.

* * *

It took every fiber of control in Kier not to yell at Bishop or try to off him when they met up in his lab at Area Fifty-One. One of the turtles _did _call that turtle girl Maeleyn. Bishop had sent him out to hunt his own daughter. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Kier finally cried, his fingers wildly clenching and unclenching as he tried to sort out his furious thoughts. He felt somewhat scared; the navy man was literally so angry he could hardly see.

"You never asked me," said the governmental man simply with a shrug. His cocky smirk on, complimenting his glossy, impenetrable black shades. Snake! Vile snake! The first thing Area Fifty-One personnel had done when he arrived was take the gun, and he was wishing he had it now.

"That's all you can say? Really? Well I want some fucking answers and I want them now!"

"Or what, Mr. Spector? You're in a situation you can't back out of. On the one hand I know where your daughter is, and I could easily agree to help the true enemies get her which would be bad for all of us. On the other hand I could get you erased off the face of the earth. The EPA has a way of covering certain things even from the media. How do you think all the UFO claims disappeared over the years? Why do you think all of the people that claimed to see those UFO's aren't around anymore?"

Kier stalled a little. That much was true. Bishop was in a position of great advantage and obvious power. He was just an underling. Underlings, however, could cause a mutiny with time. Kier just had to play obedient until something popped up. Maybe after they sprung Rilien, if they did, they could plan something.

Maeleyn's father was almost one hundred percent sure Bishop wouldn't back out on 'rescuing' the genius. There was much too much Bishop could learn from him, and use him for. Kier clenched his fists tightly, locking his jaw and bowing his head as he shut his eyes against his raging heart. More than likely bad to his body Kier quickly bottled that stress, that rage, that disappointment, in the blink of an eye. "That's better, Mr. Spector."

"Answers. I need to know what's going on."

"Of course. I need your daughter for the strand she has to make sure Earth's protective army doesn't die so easily. My other inside source has been sending me some of the experiments and so far barely any have survived." Rose nodded, keeping her cold stance next to her boss. This nuisance shouldn't be a priority over her! She wanted her brother and she _deserved _him more than he deserved his answers.

"What do you mean 'army'? Just who are we fighting?"

"Mainly the man your brother is being forced to call 'master'. An alien by the name of Ch'rell, better known as the Shredder; leader of the Foot clan. Other enemies include the Triceratons and what could even be the Federation and races beyond that."

"You're fucking psycho!" Kier spat. Great…he gets employed by a whackjob with a license to do anything granted by the government. And his captain released him into his care!

"No, Mr. Spector, I'm just smart in a new way." Bishop corrected him, fixing his suit. "Now that you have your answers go help Ms. Chaplin with Gustav while he's still unconscious." that was all he was getting and Kier knew it. He scowled. Rose more or less observed the way the thirty plus men hefted the large creature into his three-foot thick titanium cage laced with the latest in restrictive shock technology. They set the unconscious creature in his cage and Rose went inside to take his vitals for the night.

Kier scowled. Time to get back into his other skin. His brain was whirling with what he'd learned. Who was the inside source? Maybe he could break a deal with that person and _be _that underling to make the mutiny. One way or another, no matter who he had to take down to do it, Kier would get his daughter.

* * *

Rilien was now finished with the key skeleton. He knew it would never work, but his work was done. The genius wasn't sure how much time he'd have before they realized what he'd been working on had ensured he'd stay around a bit longer since he knew now that Kier was working to help him from the inside. _I could always try another system malfunction on Stockman's behalf_, thought Rilien but quickly threw that out the window because they might connect the dots, as he'd been at the first one nearly a month ago when Maeleyn escaped.

He blew out a sigh. What to do? Careful of the still-hardening skeleton of Maeleyn's jacket zipped her picked it up and looked at it as if it would tell him what to do. The key was actually a part he hadn't made. The zipper itself was actually a disguised thumb drive he'd capped after paranoia at the first break through when Maeleyn was younger. He crossed his fingers and prayed, at a loss of anything to think of.

Knowing he was alone and given that gift because of his promise Rilien logged on to the computer he'd spent days enforcing against Stockman's ever-changing security that was meant to monitor him. Though his files were destroyed due to a program he'd installed he could go into the code of the pages he'd made (the general website headers and sub-sections) to think and form new ideas. An outside code, an intrusion, kept coming up after brief reviews he'd strived to make when not too tired or busy. It was the same signal every time. Whoever this hacker was, to be able to infect his code this way, was genius.

Seeing that his original 'outside help' was now on the inside he took it upon himself to try what could be his last living effort to save his family. He tinkered with the page code so that when this mysterious onlooker went to his page parts would stand out in bright red, spelling out his message. This whole puzzle would be open finally, for someone, and hopefully it wouldn't be another enemy. Rilien, being a scientist, knew he could never totally kill or forget any work that he'd made. So, whoever had Maeleyn or whoever had her jacket (he wasn't sure if she'd tossed it after the escape or not) would be able to give them the most help of all.

_**Password: serene**_

_**File override initiation prompted key. Code: 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 – 1 0 1 0 0 0 1**_

_**Blood work files – intimates. **_

_**Please help.**_

_**Zip the files.**_

_**Please help.**_

_**Activate termination only after reading everything.**_

_**Deletion code: | / \ | || & 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 - . (/cancel) - ENTER **_

**I HOPE YOU HAVE FOUND MY CODE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP, BUT IT STILL MIGHT BE TOO LATE. IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT THIS MAN…THIS THING…IS CREATING VARIOUS ANIMAL HYBRIDS. LIFE AS WE KNOW IT AS DOMINANT HUMANS COULD BE CLOSE TO ENDING. HOPEFULLY YOU WILL SEE THIS AND BE ABLE TO GET AWAY. THE WAR IS BIGGER THAN I FIRST THOUGHT.**

**THERE IS A MOLE. THERE IS ANOTHER SIDE. ONE MIDDLE MAN AND ONE PRIZE.**

**MY NAME IS RILIEN SPECTOR, AND THIS MIGHT BE MY LAST MESSAGE. MAELEYN, KIER, I LOVE YOU. THE HAWK HAS LANDED. THE BOAT GOES TO TWO DIFFERENT HOMES. PROTECT MY OTIS REDDING.**

Feeling close to vomiting Rilien clicked 'send' and laced his hands together blowing out a big exhale. _Please_, he prayed, _someone good get that message. Take it seriously. And Maeleyn, if you're there with them please remember I hate soul music._


	10. Chapter 10

Enigma

**AN: Thanks to—I was so surprised to see her again; another faithful reviewer came out of the woodwork! Glad to see you back, hope you're doing well—**FeatherGirl13 **for reviewing chapter nine. YAY! TEN CHAPTERS! THROW THE CONFETTI AND STRING THE STREAMERS INTO A FANCIFUL SWIRL THAT HYPNOTIZES AND BEMUSES! Anyways, personal proud achievement aside we've reached chapter ten. Honestly I never suspected it to reach this far even though I believed it would and wrote so in a previous chapter but…we are here. Let's see how far Maeleyn and Raphael get with the others. Work super sucked today so I'm getting all my boo-hoo feelings out by writing this. Writing is my drug, my panacea, and my endorphin boost.** **Enjoy. WARNING: hints of incest coming into play, if you feel strongly against that the next few, maybe last few, chapters may not want to be read. They're just small hints but if you don't like the ideology of that or find it sensitive you may want to read and skim. Note: incest is not directed at the turtle, but at ROSE (spoiling a bit so people who don't like incest or dislike the addition can be cautious when reading parts about her. I've been hinting about it rather brutally by now but I'm not sure what my reviewer's opinions/views are). Also hint of romance between Gustav/Rose. Adult themes implied but mostly averted. Sort of a one-sentence statement that can be easily concluded.**

**Note separated in only this chapter because the chapter also starts out in bold. Didn't want it to run together.**

* * *

_**Password: serene**_

_**File override initiation prompted key. Code: 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 – 1 0 1 0 0 0 1**_

_**Blood work files – intimates. **_

_**Please help.**_

_**Zip the files.**_

_**Please help.**_

_**Activate termination only after reading everything.**_

_**Deletion code: | / \ | || & 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 - . (/cancel) - ENTER **_

**I HOPE YOU HAVE FOUND MY CODE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP, BUT IT STILL MIGHT BE TOO LATE. IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT THIS MAN…THIS THING…IS CREATING VARIOUS ANIMAL HYBRIDS. LIFE AS WE KNOW IT AS DOMINANT HUMANS COULD BE CLOSE TO ENDING. HOPEFULLY YOU WILL SEE THIS AND BE ABLE TO GET AWAY. THE WAR IS BIGGER THAN I FIRST THOUGHT.**

**THERE IS A MOLE. THERE IS ANOTHER SIDE. ONE MIDDLE MAN AND ONE PRIZE.**

**MY NAME IS RILIEN SPECTOR, AND THIS MIGHT BE MY LAST MESSAGE. MAELEYN, KIER, I LOVE YOU. THE HAWK HAS LANDED. THE BOAT GOES TO TWO DIFFERENT HOMES. PROTECT MY OTIS REDDING.**

For the longest time Donatello just stared at the lines taking place all on their own before his eyes. Rilien Spector had sent him a message. Was sending him a message, to be in the right frame of mind, and he was a captured man. A man assumed dead. He felt a cold sweat bead on him like it had for the past hour when he'd been under heavy pressure to give Maeleyn the utmost care and tend to what were definitely two broken bones, a blackened right side due to trauma (a little blood oozing from scrape impact but nothing too big), and a looser shell than before still dripping gray fragments and skin.

It wiggled like a loose tooth and it made the genius feel nauseated. To be de-shelled would be awful. The shell was so intimate and protective of their bodies, partly of hers, and to lose it would mean severe trauma and force incurred to the body. Trauma that could kill her if anyone else tried to finish the job. Donatello still wasn't sure how well her DNA, her new skin, could survive with the growth not fully developed. In his mind it was like pulling the sac off the belly of a baby turtle, which would kill it.

Some of her back muscles would be exposed, he knew, because he could see them in better detail than before as he literally bandaged the loose shell to her back. The raw air stung her like peroxide and she demanded to have it pressed to her body through the tears; pressing the shell hurt too, since her skin was so lose and still somewhat bloody despite the antiseptic medicine Donnie had applied. His eyes went back to the computer, Raphael taking his turn to sit with his own emotional face on—an eerily blank face, Donnie realized—and watch Maeleyn as she finally began to feel the effects of the sedative Don gave her to help her sleep. The lines on the computer kept forming and Donnie read them, Raph hardly interested in the near epiphany and hope coursing through his little brother.

Raphael probably wouldn't have understood the ruckus about it anyways; aside from the fact an assumed dead person was most definitely alive. From a scientific standpoint he was gone. The red wearing brother let his right arm hang lazily behind the top of the chair to the point where it lost feeling as his left hand kept rotating a sai clockwise ninety degrees as it thumped on his knee pad. Donnie and the others that could hear the noise in the open lab knew that as a sign of heavy thoughts and emotional distress. They didn't see Maeleyn as he did, Raphael finally began to realize; he was the only one beating down these feelings with _real _emotion attached to them – his feelings towards her weren't based on the animal side anymore.

_Damn…_Raphael let his head hang back as he gave a small sigh. His brothers would just think he was tired but he wasn't; he was wide awake. Pissed, and awake. Seeing with eyes so clear it almost hurt to look at anything. A head void of a blinding rage; simply so sharp and so focused he felt as if he were Donnie for a moment, but consumed with the obvious. He loved her. He hadn't even kissed her yet, and sure they'd basically fought like cats and dogs for a month when they weren't being _their _definition of civil (smacking, goading the other one into a pissy mood, seeing who could be the loudest, shoving, finger pointing) but he knew he loved her.

Raph wasn't good with words but he knew his emotions when he came into them. While this one was foreign the turtle had intuition to know what it was. He'd seen his human friends infected with it. The nature in which he attacked Gustav proved it. She wasn't just something they'd helped out and picked up, saved, like Klunk (who still hadn't been introduced to the new houseguest but would be tomorrow). Maeleyn was…Maeleyn was special. Human, mutant, whatever she was—he didn't care—she was amazing.

The turtle felt cliché just thinking that but he truly felt that way. He'd been harboring it so long because they were _perfect _being civil, snarky friends ("frienemies", Mikey said) that it had been nearly impossible to change that view point. Gustav had changed that. When he saw her go up in the air and saw the way the hooves of that _thing _crushed her sides in he _freaked_. He'd known various levels of panic from growing up with his brothers; everything he'd been able to shoulder and stomach without a problem – he knew his family would pull through because they had each other, and they knew each other…they could play off of each other and make this crazy good mix that blocked all the worry out of him because he _knew _them. She was different, new.

Maeleyn was dealing with her own facts of life, and being in theirs was making new facts for all of them to see. One of them had been the uniqueness that she'd been forced into, and exposed the people that wanted that uniqueness. It had exposed Raphael to her uniqueness and her personality. That personality he hated, that drove him crazy, and that he loved all at once. Raphael drifted back to the fight scene on the roof hours ago when he was so flighty, like an eagle ready to kill someone over their kids. All he could hear was Maeleyn screeching in pain begging to be put down and the way Donnie and Leo hit the roof. He'd gone into kill mode.

That was his girl. Someone was _hurting _her. This _thing _was squeezing on her like she was a rag doll or a toy! Raphael had lunged at him like a dog protecting its owner from intrusion. He didn't remember actually stabbing the beast but felt himself being jerked around like a bag in the breeze and held on. Asshole let her go then; and he could remember seeing the large pool of blood oozing out over his sais, arms, and near his feet before being catapulted back by the beast's backhand.

Raphael felt like he was going to have a panic attack and shut down when Gustav finally fainted and Don's nervous, cracking voice demanded they get her back as soon as possible. Her blood was on the ground. Everywhere. He was too shaken to help carry her so he offered the harder job to himself: body guard. The turtle gripped his sai hard as he thought about the event and hissed lightly, narrowing his eyes behind the mask.

He couldn't help her, and he couldn't tell her it was going to be okay. He ALWAYS told his brothers it was going to be okay, and that he was there, when they were hurt and worried. Raphael felt like he'd let her down. Even more so since he'd yet to share his feelings with her which wouldn't be easy. Hours ago he'd been set to kill. Anything, anyone on the outside…if it crossed his path. Nothing would touch her. She would get to 'point B' safe so she could heal.

Turtles were vicious in protecting their territory and he was no exception. In fact, he was probably the paragon of their animal nature. He released his grip and sighed. She was safe now. Bandaged up and cleaned, and sleeping with little sensors taped to her skin on Don's large, empty work desk. Her vitals were good.

She just had emotional pain, as well as a helluva dose of physical pain. Her ribs would take at least three to six weeks to heal and her shell…well, they may never be able to fix that since it was lose to begin with (Maeleyn wasn't a fan of Don's homemade sewing stitches).

He could already see it coming; she'd probably have another break down because her lessons would be slowed to accommodate her injuries. Especially if she heard about Don's message from Rilien which he was being made to listen to now. His brother gushed in a soft whisper, pointing from the screen to the keyboard, to himself and spouting off all sorts of curious, jumbled ideas. Raph got up from the chair. He saw goose bumps on her skin and decided to get her jacket.

They could give her the nicest blanket, most intact blanket in the lair, and she'd still want her jacket no matter what. Donnie's eyes seemed to glow nocturnally, peculiarly when Raph walked in with her jacket clenched loosely in one hand. His little brother sprang at him like an animal, grinning ear-to-ear and making this long sentence he could only hear the tone of voice in, not the words. Before Raphael got the bright idea to knock the IQ out of his little brother he watched Maeleyn jolt up, stiffen, and bite her lip to fight crying out. He was there; as Donnie was occupied.

His heart thundered behind his plastron, holding her. She was in obvious pain but in his arms nonetheless, leaning into him like she couldn't support herself anymore. It felt nice. For a second she'd looked up at him in disbelief, as he wasn't Donnie, and relaxed, letting him press gently beneath her shell to keep her upright as they both watched Donnie methodically lay out the jacket and smooth it down, searching along the teeth of the zipper for something.

He ripped off the bottom part of the zipper and Maeleyn's tail—had Raphael not been in the way—twitched in urge to smack him, and would've gotten him good. Donnie had desecrated her jacket! Her jacket the Rilien had so painstakingly fixed for her all those years ago! The genius spliced the faux coat on the thumb drive and plugged it into his computer, watching in awe as pages upon pages of work exploded and filled his computer from corner to corner with diagrams, studies, notes, paused videos and more. It was all so beautiful!

"Uncle Rilien?" Maeleyn leaned forward a bit and Raphael kept her supported, going unheard as he warned her of the monitors taped to her body and their limited stretch range. Donatello nodded numbly, wondering where to start. The family was called into his room as Don found the best—simplest way—to summarize all of Rilien's efforts and project parts, and their significance. Maeleyn helped a great deal with that, she was like the 'simple' version of Don's longwinded reiteration, mainly because she was drugged and her thoughts were simple and short anyway at the moment.

It had come down to Rilien sending the site hacker (Donnie) his files so the Shredder couldn't have them and so Don could be able to form a diffusion cure to anyone else they come across if they want to become human again. His notes could also help Donatello—and Leatherhead, undoubtedly, possibly April—make a one-hit shot to kill the evil ones Shredder was no doubt making at this point, and in mass numbers if the genius had to bet. Don saved all the files and killed the main branch of them so anyone trying to track Rilien couldn't make their way to his computer, or the complexity of walls, zipped folders, and code he'd stored the copies behind.

They were all back to the main message that had triggered the files. "This is where you come in," he said pointing to Maeleyn as he took his pressed-together palms from his lips and looked at her. "This is obviously code for you." he told her, gesturing to the message. "But it might take a while since you still look pretty distant on the sedative…" he grimaced a little, hating the fact that what was supposed to help Maeleyn was hindering her and them at the moment.

"Read it to me. My vision's all fucked." she whined and failed to see Splinter's ears point back lightly in dislike at the language. Raph's lips twitched in a tiny grin. An unafraid, vulgar lady. He liked that.

"…there is a mole. There is another side. One middle man and one prize. My name is Rilien Spector and this may be my last message. Maeleyn, Kier, I love you. The hawk has landed. The boat goes to two different homes. Protect my Otis Redding."

The first thing that shot off in her mind was triggered by the Otis Redding comment. Uncle Rilien hated soul music. He didn't like how sustained and wavy a word could be. "He hates soul music. Otis Redding is a soul singer." Maeleyn felt like she was on a bunch of Novocain. She wasn't even sure if her head was straight and held up; she felt like it was going side to side like a bobble head…or maybe she was just tired and still plagued by the sedative. Her thoughts were sluggish and she felt dizzy like when she first woke up in the underground facility, but no panic this time. She was safe.

"My dad's the hawk. Nickname from…shooting range. Eyes like a hawk. Hawk man. The hawk." she giggled at herself. For some reason saying all the things related to the prowess of her father was amusing. Maybe it was because of the sedative. Or maybe it was because she missed her father, and he seemed like a far-off dream because she was so different. Either way she had the sweet memories of him and they warmed her greatly; made her giggly just like he could in a second when she was a little girl.

"So he's here…in New York?" Mikey was beginning to put together in his usual slow, comical fashion. Maybe the pieces of whatever the hell this ordeal made was coming together in a new, good way in a different mind.

"Probably looking for his child," Splinter offered with no doubt in his mind. "It's parent's instinct to find their young ones if they believe something isn't right."

"He's supposed to be on the boat. The _Eagleton_."

"What's he do for a job?" Mikey asked curiously. Because-as he assumed—an angry, worried fisherman was so scary to the Shredder. He loved his own sarcasm but hated he came up with all the good lines in his head, and before he could say them someone would turn the conversation to a serious point where it was 'inappropriate' and he'd get flips! Life's a bitch.

"Navy man. Admiral."

"Dude…nice."

"He's got the element of surprise on almost everyone in this…issue." Leo was at a loss to find a better word for this whole puzzling mystery that had Maeleyn, and the Hamato family, at the center.

"Mmhm." Donatello agreed, nodding. "For one thing if he's good then he can attack aquatically, perhaps even in surprise. We saw what types of martial art Maeleyn could do and obviously she had to learn them from someone."

Leo nodded. "So the question is: where is he? It'd be good for us and him to have him on our side."

"Believe me, Leonardo," Splinter assured them all as his right hand clutched his left atop his cane, "I can safely say Maeleyn's father is on our side. We have kept his child safe, even though he may not know it. The enemy of our enemy is a friend. All we must do is find him. Or wait on him…"

"But how can we find navy dude? He's gotta have, like, some secret government training, right?"

"Look at this though," Don pulled up a file that Rilien had sent. It was a copy of his e-mail to Kier, who they were now assuming was Maeleyn's father. He read it aloud for them. "By now I think he knows what she is, and what to look for."

"On the roof…" Raph damned himself for saying anything while Maeleyn was still partially coherent but it clicked instantly. Who else, _why _else would a mysteriously dressed person attack the creature trying to squish Maeleyn and not them, when there were more turtles on the roof? Someone that wanted to protect her had saved them, probably because they made an effort in saving her. The brothers quickly arrived to the same assumption and suddenly it clicked; not all of it, but a chunk of it.

The figure they were assuming to be Kier, Maeleyn's dad, was probably Bishop's goon because he was with Gustav. Gustav had been made by Bishop using Rilien's synthetic blood stolen by the Shredder. Whether or not the Shredder and Bishop were working together (which was highly unlikely after Don poked a huge hole in that logic reiterating the Triceraton war and Bishop's view on aliens) was undeterminable. Still; they had partial logic now. To put it simpler, for Mikey, Don came to the conclusion that: Kier is definitely in New York, trying to get to Maeleyn.

He's working for Bishop and has a means to fight against the DNA creations, and KNOWS something about Rilien, or else Rilien wouldn't have known Kier to BE in New York and wouldn't have included him, or known that the "hawk had landed". It was all rather dizzying, the logic circle, but helpful. Don felt the tension the more he thought about it. The issue was really building here and it wouldn't be long before it exploded.

"The only thing I can't get…" Don's thought process was broken by Leo pondering aloud, "what's with the boat? Is he going back on the boat he came from?"

"Dunno, but we'll have to try and think of something soon. I think we're having a rapid buildup and when it gets like this you know what that means." he looked to Leo. The eldest went very serious and somber as the thought hit him.

"War…" he noted as his eyes narrowed at the memory highlighted by Bishop's hate against the Triceratons and their general constant battle with the Shredder. "War in the city."

* * *

The day for Kier had been nothing since yesterday's activity of loading Gustav up and shipping him to the local zoo with Rose in tow to be interviewed. It was seconds from six a.m. in the morning and the interview displaying the 'foreign, new specie' would be seen worldwide. This was the turning point. This was Bishop putting his foot in the door of Shredder's lair. With his last cargo drop off Chaplin had sent a note telling Bishop and his crew he'd sent duplicates of every last species they had at last. Production was stalled as they began to analyze and utilize 'new parts to their research' and when Kier heard that his stomach hardened. _Rilien! _he was so scared for his brother but at the moment his own bones were shaking. He knew they were going to test the key, which would ultimately fail because it had never been designed to work in the first place.

They were so close to the fight…he could almost taste it. It could be days, weeks, months away but it felt close. Currently donning Foot attire he stood by the little stuttering TV when the broadcast went to Rose at the Manhattan Zoo. Gustav was somewhat sedated and partially wild; acting like a real animal and making a show for—who else?—the Foot to encourage capture. He was being admitted in his special cage to the zoo, zapped and tangled in handling nets, Rose close behind. Chaplin wasn't too far off from him, staring wide-eyed at the TV.

Seconds later Chaplin's pager went off. "Yes sir…" he replied to the crackling voice he'd deciphered so easily while Kier was obviously confused. "The Master wants that animal. You and a squad will go at nightfall to get it. Bring the girl, too." Chaplin was so excited he shook like a leaf. His sister! She was alive! Bishop had kept his promise!

Oh if Karai could meet her! Briefly he wondered if the Shredder would notice, smell suspicion, or even care but quickly disregarded that. His _sister _was going to be with him again. He hadn't known his flesh and blood in a long time. Now if he died soon he could die happy knowing he had another Chaplin alive on the earth, and one he wouldn't butt heads with.

Chaplin paused, steps from his personal room. That animal he'd seen on the TV next to Rose was one of the very same odd origins Kier had described. The bape. Bishop was feeding them the animal, and Rose! It reeked of a trap but Chaplin had resolved earlier a day or two ago to let the war come – the Shredder needed to learn that an alien, however advanced it was, wasn't immortal.

It boggled him though. Why would Bishop _give _them the animal so easily? He saw it as a way to deliver his promise, his reward that he'd waited on for so long after checking behind him and being paranoid for almost a month, but why? What else did he have planned? For two hours Chaplin stretched his mind to think like the odd Bishop but simply couldn't come to the same conclusion the government man had, and left the subject alone for another day.

They had the creature, a new test subject, and apparently something with sustainable DNA. It was good. Life was good, in his opinion, and from here it could only get better.

* * *

At ten in the morning Rose eagerly returned to Bishop, excited and beside herself as she told him not to fret after leaving Gustav at the zoo. She was 'scheduled' to be back from noon to three and then again at nine to midnight. It was all going according to plan, and soon she would see Chaplin. She giggled at the thought! Big brother…she hadn't seen him in so long! Why she'd get to hug him, smile at him, ruffle his hair, steal his glasses and mark them up with her fingerprints, plant a big kiss on his cheek! It would be wonderful!

Bishop was happy enough that they'd gotten rid of the dying Gustav (less cleaning) and proceeded to think about the rest of his plan. Only a few more pieces left until the mayhem exploded. It would take time, but it was close. Drawing nearer. He was already constructing a secret, reinforced back-up base in Manhattan—right under the turtles' noses so he could laugh at their stupidity—to stow what hybrids and DNA projects they had surviving in case the battle came to Area Fifty-One.

It shouldn't, he assured himself, but it wasn't nice to take chances or risks. The healthy, living experiments were given that privilege to go to the New York base located beneath the abandoned warehouse near the docks, somewhat like the entrance to his old lab before the turtles wrecked it when he'd gotten the first sample of their DNA. It was a confusing maze of concrete tunnels full of air (should any experiments escape down there so they didn't die) with only one way out: the ocean. Both Area Fifty-One's base and the New York base demanded boat carrying as a possibility for transportation, which is why he insisted on it from Chaplin.

Now what was left on his list? Oh yes. Rilien Spector. He needed him…and very badly, so, after Rose and Gustav were taken into the Foot headquarters Gustav would break Rilien out. How Rose would get him to do it Bishop didn't really care to know, just as long as that lanky, spindly-looking nerd broke free on the streets long enough for his men to grab him. And Kier would follow.

He let Rose prattle on about her glee and even disappear to do whatever the hell it was she wanted to (at this point he didn't care; she'd done good and was going to see Chaplin which meant anything he asked from now on would be done because he'd fulfilled his promise to _her_). Bishop stood still in the silent room; what with Gustav gone to a new 'home' and Rose off doing her tasks it was quiet. No machines active, no belligerent Gustav, no grim-faced Rose. He gave a small sigh.

Pressing the button down on his pager he looked at the device. "General?" he called into it, hearing a response from his leading army manager. "Set up Slash and the habitat."

When he told Kier Spector he'd get his daughter back he never said in what condition. It was only a matter of time before the Spector family fell like dominos—following one another—and he had a beautiful vision in mind. One that would sustain the human race when they had an army of mutants to unleash upon their foes. He was thinking Maeleyn would look nice pregnant, birthing the first turtle spawn of his army.

But, according to Gustav, Kier, and Rose's analysis Gustav had done some damage. Broken ribs and a badly beaten side, Gustav recalled. That gave him at least three weeks of agonizing anticipation but he could bear. It would take the Shredder just as long, if not longer, to make some sort of battle strategy when seeing Rilien missing, Gustav dead, and an opposing army of top secret government equipment staring him down. Especially now that he had a secret liaison with Stockman who was also joining the anti-Shredder group due to his latest deformity that had inspired him to build a completely cyborg body from an alien-like artifact he'd taken out of the east river.

* * *

Sound asleep Raphael gently pressed the side of his face to his arm, listening to Maeleyn snore so…gracefully…like she did. It was his third shift watching Maeleyn and her supporting machines. He was so tired…but to hear her breathing was a comfort. Burning eyes blinked and he grumbled a sigh, folding his arm in to rest his chin on it. In the room, at the hour, and with everything she'd been through Raph could really see the wear of stress on her face. But she looked beautiful.

Her skin, though still asparagus green, seemed to be on the paler side of that shade, probably indicating her bodily condition. The odd coloring of her stomach and hips hypnotized him. Because of that they all knew she wasn't totally turtle, and it was somehow erotic to the hothead of the bunch. The diamond patch covering her stomach and the stripes on her hips called to him like areas he _had _to touch. That urge often got him a tail in the face. Or right beneath his own tail which she figured out—but hadn't gone into a full curious discussion with Donnie yet—was connected to their junk and witnessed the stunning effect of tear-inducing paralysis and trembling it had.

But, the bickering, the slapping, the harmless snarky chatter that happened when they were alone was something. She hadn't denied anything so far and he sure as hell wasn't quitting. Something in him triggered by his link with intuition and meditative training told him something big was going to happen soon. So he better spill his guts and make it count before that thing happened. He would, he promised himself, and she'd be speechless.

No one saw it since the others had gone to sleep for the night, just short of four in the morning, but Raphael slipped his hand into hers and finally let his eyes fall shut. Never in his life had he come to a moment like this: all emotion ceased to exist except calm, and he was full of it. No, not calm…he was content. This was how it was supposed to be. _**001**__…_he thought, opening his eyes a mite to look at the tattoo she hated because it disfigured her, reminded her of the new thing she was, _only one of your kind and the only one up for grabs. Well, __**001**__, you are __**mine**_.

And no one, not the Shredder, not Bishop, not even 'Kier' could change that. Raphael was a very stubborn turtle. What he set his sights on he usually conquered. A female turtle? No problem. Perhaps a challenge, but no real problem. He'd defeated every challenge he'd come across in life thus far. Except for Leo, of course…but he had his moments, his rare wins. It was going to be smooth sailing from here on out.

* * *

Midnight was close at hand and Rose sat next to Gustav's cage, trying not to vomit as she thought of what Bishop had asked her to do. It was so sick! She'd never even dreamed this would've been in her line of work, but it was for Chaplin! Big bubba Chaplin. Gustav looked at her with hungry eyes after what she'd just told him, whispered so quietly, intimately near the bars of his cage.

His sedative had well worn off by now and he rolled over to lounge, an instinct and position he thought to be alluring to the human after having to watch so much of their smutty TV in his tank. Physically he cared not what her motive was—intellectually maybe he did but his feelings were finally being returned!—and watched her with glossy dark eyes as she unlocked his cage and sank carefully to the floor as if he were a rabid animal instead of a calm, waiting, intelligent one. With great caution she undressed until she was like a peaches and cream angel before him with her messy, fanning blonde waves spilling over her shoulders.

She hugged him like some sort of furry teddy bear, letting him take the slow, gentile guide. Gustav didn't know that while he let those visions in his head escape—the long overdue ones—it wasn't him she dreamed of to fight off the rancid sickness that threatened to consume her. While he knew outright passion and glee of fulfillment and his two new promises to her he knew not of her idea to leave him completely behind once they were taken away.

By the time Kier and the others arrived to steal the beast and Rose away an odd smell permeated the air. It smelled of sweat, musk, and a woman's perfume. Though the cage attendant, Rose, was fully dressed she looked tousled and unconscious. The beast was sleeping, too, they slowly gathered—assumed—that Rose was either lonely and found comfort in the large creature or that she and the creature had a relationship. Kier was sick at the thought.

She was a human! Gustav was an animal! He felt like puking but managed to control himself. Gustav awoke with bright eyes at the rousing noise Kier made to the cage. The other members recoiled from the cage, too afraid after hearing what had happened the first time Gustav met the Foot. Defying his pattern Gustav nudged Rose awake and looked towards the mouth of his cage. She looked at them with wide, practiced eyes. One Foot member, one that wasn't Kier, hissed in a threatening, cool, demanding voice, "Come with us, and tell the thing to come with you."

Gustav narrowed his eyes in the darkness but followed Rose out with the suspicious men. Already he didn't like them. They treated him inhumanely. But at least he had Rose. Like an animal they put him in the most guarded, toughest part of their large vehicle they had rented.

Chaplin was there in the front of the vehicle—much to Rose's glee—making sure loopholes in the revolving security cameras covered their kidnapping and escape off the lot. They now had a test subject to glean and conduct tests on, unaware that said test subject was in poor, deteriorating shape and sought to rid them of their most valuable piece: Rilien Spector.


	11. Chapter 11

Enigma

**AN: Didn't grant any time for reviews yet, I know, because I updated so early this morning but I'm super geeked and running on four hours of sleep which makes me hyper. For some reason LACK of sleep makes me hyper. I figure I can squeeze maybe three to five chapters out of this story before the end. If more, then more, but three to five is all I'm expecting out of it. Major Raphael/Maeleyn romance coming up…so for all the fans that have stuck with it this long you're finally about to be sated! Huzzah! **

She wasn't expecting this at all. Mikey was appointed 'Otis Redding' searcher on Don's computer while the genius insisted on helping Leatherhead go over the sea of notes he'd printed from Rilien's secret files. His musings at various Otis Redding songs from "Thousand Miles Away" to "You're One and Only Man" earned varied responses. Most, because of their cheeky nature and blunt inclusion of Raphael, got him smacked. But he was helping; just making the task long. And yet amusing. He was good to have.

Mikey quickly got bored scanning lyrics when there was a total of one hundred and forty-two songs to look through on the site that claimed to have the largest collection of Otis Redding songs around. They turned the chat to other things, things that would take the sting of her literal pain and pain stemming from what seemed babyish ninja classes. She'd be getting this treatment well on into the next month, Donatello warned her, and so she was swiftly learning the art of distraction courtesy of Michelangelo Hamato.

His bored search had actually turned dead around from Rilien and his odd thought patterns coaxing out Maeleyn commentary to just Maeleyn and what she'd yet to talk about with the Hamato family: her old human life and the things she left behind. The she-turtle hybrid felt nervous but it really was helping her anxiety geared towards her uncle. "So…who's that chick in the picture on your wall?" as of late she felt numb and had been sleeping on Don's worktable to stay close to the machines; she'd nearly forgotten about her own real room they'd set up. Best bed four guys living in an underground space spruced up by cleaned junkyard treasures could offer. It was soft, had some holes, and sometimes the springs were noisy or poked her in the tail if she forgot about them but it was _so_ nice. It would be now, too. She was wishing she had it.

She felt like they were really her family now. They had accepted her for what she was. They diffused the mystery of 'what am I?' for her and showed the answer: she was her. And she _fit_ just fine. Maeleyn drifted back to the present as Mikey half-turned from the glowing monitor to look at her and she flushed a little at her own absent mindedness.

"A friend of mine…" she said slowly. Thinking of Jezebelle hurt. It had been so long. Knowing one of your best friends since fifth grade went missing, literally disappeared off the face of the earth for a year, really did some damage. Emotionally and physically. Maeleyn remembered all the tears and feeling so empty at the vigils as the months dragged on and the Rhode Island Volunteer Committee had finally decided that—with the official police call off of the search and declaring her deceased—she's get a nice marble-based placard .

She'd spent some of her harder nights resting against the eight-by-ten slab when she had no one else to fall on. When her dad didn't see something the same way she'd run off to her friend's memorial and just sit there, calmed by the feeling of knowing that stone represented her friend. Jezebelle always listened, and always saw the world as two linked halves. The mouthy, stubborn, intelligent thing no bigger than maybe an eleven or twelve year old was everyone's listening ear, their cheerleader, their counselor, and the one that spirited away all the nasty unneeded emotions just by being able to _tell _when someone wanted anyone else to care, and did something about it. Maeleyn clenched her fist lightly at the first few memories flashing before her eyes; images of Jezebelle showing off her tattoo she'd gotten on her eighteenth birthday, the first time they both went to a grub night at the high school, and so much more.

"I…" Maeleyn blew out a hard, hot sigh like she was going to cry. Thinking of Jezebelle after such a long time of just regarding the still picture hurt. She remembered what she missed in sharp, deep detail. "Jezzie was my best friend. We used to live a couple houses down from one another in Rhode Island and I really got to know her around the fifth grade. She was a year older than me but missed the cut off date for being a grade above me month wise," Maeleyn recalled. Jezebelle often complained about feeling older than the other people she'd come to befriend, always forgetting everyone around her was a year or younger than she.

"She up and disappeared earlier last year back in January when she went with her aunt on a small trip to Florida. No one knows what happened to her. Not even her aunt. I miss her like crazy."

"You stare pretty hard at her picture when you're pissed." she must leave the door open when she stomps off, Maeleyn concluded. How else would he know that? The turtle gave a small smile and—wincing lightly—propped her chin up thanks to the hand connected to the elbow resting on her left knee.

"I guess I'm still hoping someone's going to find her…or that she's out there. That she's okay. Jezzie always let me rant when I need it. I look at that picture and no matter how pissy your dumb brother makes me it all goes away. Sometimes I feel like that picture's the only thing keeping me sane. She can still hear me if I can see her, and if she sees me."

"Good goin', shell fer brains, now you got her all emotional!" Raph scowled from his crooked lean against Donnie's doorframe. "The genius Donatello summons you to the living room. He wants to take special, personal time in educating you in the new toy he whipped up. Wants to make sure you don't shoot yourself in the foot. Or eat it. You might mistake it for jelly." Mikey wasn't sure what Raphael was talking about but stuck his tongue out at his older brother as he passed. How dare he mock his ability to tell what was edible and what wasn't!

But then again he did eat some odd stuff…on the bright side Donnie made a cool new gadget! And because Raphael warned him of longwinded, boring operation stuff coming up it must have a trigger, and it must shoot! So cool! Raphael leaned against the other side of the frame now, debating whether or not he should say anything because Maeleyn was staring at him. He felt awkward.

Raphael almost felt bad for wanting her like he did; he was much more cultured to turtle pheromones than she and the smell killed him. His own musk made him sick some days but here, now, when she was so calm and simply sitting she emitted a sweet milk and honey scent with just the tiniest hint of spice. Sort of like the one kind of girl that loved to wear nice perfumes but always added a touch of her guy's wash to her bath when he wasn't home. Or like April, now that he thought of such a generalization that actually applied to the redhead.

Thinking of the redhead reminded him of why he was really here. Donatello wanted her out of the way while he discussed and debated with the family on whether or not to make a diffusion cure for her. So now was a better time than ever to pawn her off to April and hope they didn't kill each other. Splinter had given Raphael explicit instructions to stay with her, too, because apparently he was 'too sensitive' for the issue they were considering. That thought made him scowl; he knew he shouldn't have even thought of liking her!

They could sense it, it was weakness! He was better off being his old self. But that was nearly impossible; she made him a totally different person from his old self. Raph remembered the bold way she'd struck him in the throat with her "Krav maga" and grinned a little. He'd never be the same after meeting her.

"So are you gonna stare at me or are you gonna do something?" Maeleyn asked, crossing her arms just beneath her breasts. As much as he didn't want to (or maybe he did, he was still trying to sort that one out) he found his eyes going to her body. It was hard not to look her over curiously; she was bipedal (obvious base of a human) but with thin, soft, green skin stretched over that structure, highlighting the curves of a human woman hiding in that DNA contaminated flesh. Her mesh of turtle body parts into lizard-like patterns was like a big sign demanding stares when she flexed or moved.

After all, the calcifications were on her breasts, showing them clearly _out there _like a human with a water bra and a two-sizes-too-small tee on…except she couldn't help hers. He wasn't complaining. "Naughty turtle!" her voice was a low purr, the satisfaction of popping his nose with her tail evident, and she spoke with the smallest edge of playful cheekiness. Raphael felt his mouth run dry as he observed her, and made a great effort to hide the stupefying effects she caused as he managed to keep his composure in front of her.

That impending sense that a clock was continuing to count down to a huge cliché apocalyptic-like event was driving him crazy. It was just like how they knew mating season was right around the corner and already felt the burnout of having to deal with each other due to being male. Anticipation, if he had to chalk it up to one word. His brain was demanding he kiss her soon; especially if he let anything slip about this diffusion vial Don was thinking of mixing up for her. It might be his last chance to kiss her as she sat before him.

Would he be biased to the change? Raph wasn't sure, but he'd known her as only this so why try and change? She was perfect the way she was. Bitchy attitude and iron fist included. "I'm gonna sit here and stare at you," Raph felt himself saying and he felt giddily distant, like he was watching his favorite mob movie and knowing the scumbags had their arrests coming. "Don told me to keep an eye on you. Nothin' else."

"So you don't want to touch me? At all? It's a shame, I'm a huggy person." _son of a bitch! _he cried in his head. He knew that look, her eyes. The way they narrowed and glinted with that confident spark, the way that narrowness crinkled when she smiled to give her eyes the odd, filed-down almond-diamond shape. Apparently she could read him very well…but he probably wasn't the first male she'd been around, after all…she'd been human before this.

Maeleyn gave him a genuine flirty smile when his eye lids lowered in the signature 'fuck you' look. She hit the nail on the head pretty well. Raphael was so fun to expose, especially when he lived like he didn't have any emotions when he obviously wore his heart on his sleeve for his family. She was doomed to resting again; that meant being escorted from 'point A' to 'point B' and being babied, denied various free-range motions and that annoyed her. So…she needed some fun. Raph was here.

"Yeah," he snorted to her in obvious disbelief of her claim. He could tell she wanted to agitate him; it was in the way she wiggled her shoulders and clasped her hands together towards the left knee. Like some innocent school girl but it was all fake. Hot, but fake. She couldn't play innocent. That, he liked.

"Last time you hugged me you whacked me in my crotch."

"I _told _you, that was an _accident_!" Raphael was referring to her fourth day without using her dominant hand when she'd been standing in the doorway to the dojo, watching them fight. When he'd just finished a usual raging fight between he and Leo, and when he'd just stepped over the track the door slid on she _happened _to turn around after sliding an arm for support around his neck, swaying under the effects of the painkiller. Her tail went with the rest of her body and—maybe just as a reptile thing—smacked him _in _his tail which was the turtles' natural tender spot for lack of exposed crotch like the human males had. She'd won a fight she hadn't even started and Raph sunk to the mat.

He didn't know her tail was scaly or that it even had little ridges like Leatherhead's but he knew then and damn did it hurt! She batted her mascara and eyeliner-accented eyes and smiled. He scowled. Her sexual appeal was sick, and working. Maeleyn was human enough to retain her eyelashes and have makeup work on her skin, and on her face make up was hypnotizing (one step closer to putting hot reptile girls into the mainstream and on the newest copy of _Playboy_, in his opinion).

"Point is, you're not moving. Ain't nothin' you can do to make me move you."

"Can't convince you?"

"Can't convince me."

"Can I bribe you?"

"Don't take bribes."

"So," she purred seductively in the nonchalant, absent tone preferred when messing with his head, "there's _nothing _I can do to make you move, hm? Well let me try. Because frankly, I think you're lying." she twirled the red tails of his mask around her finger and, amused, he stepped closer to her. Kid was hurt, banged up and bandaged so he could at least be close enough for her to 'try'. Raphael Hamato didn't sway easily. He was pretty sure he wouldn't, either. Then again, this was Maeleyn, and this was his hormones going crazy as he drew closer to her.

Two turtles. Two turtles of different sexes so close. He felt himself shiver and she picked up on that with an impish grin on her asparagus green face. Her snout—so unlike theirs that had an obvious protruding, dome-like shape—was human-like with a significantly smaller protrusion that showed no flare of nostrils (nostril slits, like theirs) or structure of nose bones to make her seem more human. Just smooth skin stretched at an angle to indicate the somewhat flat area where her nostrils were. "There hasn't been a man I've seen yet that I couldn't _convince_…" Maeleyn whispered to the side of his head, where the depression for his ear was, and Raphael shivered shutting his eyes.

Just his luck, his nature. Badass falls for a badass, bold chick. Maeleyn wasn't afraid to play her cards, or use her body, but she didn't seem like the type to do it just for pure profit. She had more integrity than that, Raphael liked to think. And this was all just harmless play to prove point, right? Raphael felt electricity in his veins, a swirl of heat and the effort it took to breathe as he stood alive and immersed in the situation.

There was no point to prove anymore. They were just them, in this situation where he could easily lay her back and show her just how emotional he was. She started it, and damn it if he wasn't going to finish it. She wanted to play it like a game; he'd have her coming back and _begging _him to do it again. "Those little boys weren't like me, babe. Whole new game and a whole new _species_." Raphael whispered into her hair as he poked his nose into it, resisting the statement-clincher of nipping her.

They couldn't keep avoiding the issue, avoiding them. Sure he only knew her for a month or so but when people look at you like that, with eyes like hers, you can see where you're gonna go before you even speak up or take the first step. They attracted each other like magnets. Her body shuddered and her skin exploded with goose bumps as she arched into him, feeling the heat radiate from his body as he placed his hands firmly to either side of her hips on the cool work desk of his little brother's. It was dizzying, almost, Maeleyn though.

At a time when her focus should be primarily on getting better, on finding Rilien she found she wasn't alone anymore. In having this new help she could also focus on her lesser attended needs, romance being one of them. Even though she despised cliché distressed princesses waiting on a man to save them those old stories, the very beliefs of nearly every little girl she mocked as a child, had a good key concept: love conquered all. Love could help smooth the rough transitions and bad situations down to nothing. She needed that right now.

A relationship would take away from Rilien's missing status, her secretive father, new body, and personal dislike at _not _having a relationship. She was tired of those stupid human guys anyways. Raphael was more than a good candidate for romance. Strong, stubborn, _muscular_, loyal, passionate, secretly mushy with his little siblings, coolly sarcastic, smug, confident…everything she liked. He was the right blend between asshole, jerk, badass, and secret sweetheart that made the perfect, undiscovered forbidden lover.

Raph was like the really hot foreign love documented in the 'dime a dozen' romance novels from the store, but so much better (and he was real). The fact that he and his family had helped her adjust to being a mutant made it much more interesting. Being of a similar species and not just two humans who thought they liked one another made it _much _more interesting and kinky. "I think I can handle this species…" her voice was thick with lust and emotion but her tone was mouse soft, intimate. For the two of them.

She threaded the two long bandanna tails through her fingers like she was tightening a tie to the shortest possible length until his head followed the motion and their lips met. The tension in her melted. It felt just like she imagined it would. He felt like she thought he would. His lips were soft, going in some sort of gentle rubbing motion against her own as he pressed himself between her thighs and to the closest point without climbing on the desk; the pressure he met her lips with was hard but gentle. Everything in Raphael's head stopped.

Okay…so he was planning to be the one to kiss her, to make _her_ melt, but he was finally getting something. This was nice. His brain felt like it had been shut off, or numbed, but his body knew what it was doing. She pulled away, a sweet but confident smile on her face as she looked at him with her gray eyes, the romance-induced fog lifting from his mind as he stared at her. He licked his lips, shivering as he tasted the smallest sign of her lips against his.

"And I am not convinced." he found the air to say, trying to believe that. She'd said there wasn't a guy she couldn't convince; well, he'd make it to where he was the _only_ one she'd want to convince. Ever.

"You're a damn liar and you know it!"

"Not convinced?" his sharp, white teeth peeked out behind the crooked smirk controlling his lips and Maeleyn shivered at the sight of them. To feel them! "Let me help ya out." Raphael grabbed her chin and didn't give her any time to respond before pressing his lips to hers, going a step further and slipping his tongue into her mouth when she parted them just enough for him to do so. He was reading her by smell; her once overly sweet scent now poisoned with heavy spice, her want. Maeleyn felt every fiber in her body ring and shiver when he kissed her, instantly going lightheaded.

The way Raphael kissed her was so different than how she had kissed him. She gave him a teasing kiss! Sure the first in her new body but still, it was mainly for fun (though those thoughts for him were restrained when she kissed him). His were….raw, coarse, dark, lusting. Hard, emotional. Maeleyn could _feel _Raphael through his lips; it was almost as if she found his heart escaping into her through the insistency and firmness in which he kissed her. He really did love her? Didn't he?

No human could kiss her like that, not even the first one she'd sworn she loved. It had taken Chance hours just to incite the feelings Raphael conjured in the first kiss, the first few seconds. She could tell by the way he smoothed one callused hand over her smaller shoulder that it wasn't just for jollies, how he was kissing her. It meant _something_. A warm, hard curl in her lower gut ignited when she felt the texture of his tongue on hers and the languid caress in which he moved it.

Good god! She didn't know if his eyes were open or closed, hers were most certainly closed but that didn't matter. His fingers slipped under her jaw line and kept her to him, the tips of his large fingers just inching into her hair, to the more sensitive part centered around her ears and the back of her neck which made her shiver again. Raphael finally pulled away at the lack of air, the smallest hint of the kiss ending in a nip on her lips. Maeleyn felt in a stupor and for the longest time blinked and trained her eyes to the light illuminating Donnie's room.

"_Finally_! We knew that was coming." Raphael snapped his head back to glower at Michelangelo cheesing tentatively at the two of them. "Came to tell you, you got an official summons to April's place." _must be time for them to debate their oh-so big issue…_Raph thought. Maybe he'd poke around and see what Maeleyn thought about it. Hopefully she wouldn't want to change. "And bring Klunk back, will you? I miss my baby."

"You have a baby?" Maeleyn looked at him incredulously. Mikey was raising a kid? Mikey had made a kid?

"It's a cat." Raphael said flatly. No way in hell Mikey would leave a real kid of his at April's for over a month. Probably couldn't make a kid, period. "C'mon, let's go." being especially careful of her abdomen they had learned quickly how to carry Maeleyn, or, in the event she felt good, how to assist her.

* * *

"Oh aren't you gorgeous? Your hair is lovely; I'm surprised you retained it. The guys are all bald." April giggled as she ran Maeleyn's silky hair through her fingers experimentally. Raphael gave her a slightly wounded look, obviously more trusting of these two humans than any other because Maeleyn had yet to see any other ones.

"Thanks Ape, because we all love rememberin' we ain't got nothin' up there."

"Don't matter what you got or ain't got up there, bro. It's what ya got down here." Maeleyn rolled her eyes as the obnoxious, buff human she'd come to know as Casey Jones as grabbed himself. Raphael chuckled. Leave it to Casey. April smacked him in the arm. Maeleyn giggled. They were a comical couple; it was like a jock fell in love with a nerd! She loved the bumbling, dark-haired oaf already! He was highly amusing.

So far so good. Maeleyn was fairly surprised at April. She wouldn't have imagined the guys to fall into a small clique containing a human that oozed love for everything because, frankly, it was kind of disappointing and way too princess-like for Maeleyn. April smiled at Raph and Casey as they went to raid the fridge. "You hurt him, any of them, and I will make you wish you were never created." she hissed in Maeleyn's ear. Raphael came out munching on a half of a sub, Casey inhaling the other half, and quirked an eye ridge at the utterly horrified face of Maeleyn, who stared from him to April and back again. "I think I'm going to like her!" April smiled, carefully giving Maeleyn half a hug.

_I think I just peed on myself…_Maeleyn heard the thought resonate in her own mind. No wonder she fit in with the Hamato family. She was fucking crazy! Or just r_eally _devoted to their protection. "So…how did you guys meet?" Raph helped her to the couch and turned to humor to dissolve the light fear that had been placed into her by the redhead.

"Oh well my story started with Stockman which, no doubt and by the looks of you, you've met."

"Indirectly, yes, so how'd you meet crackpot?"

"Well…" Raphael leaned back into the couch. April didn't exactly tell stories to captivate. She was that boring story teller, the analytical, cut-and-dry kind. "Raphael don't yawn! Interrupt much? She's trying to hear me!" he swatted the oncoming throw pillow and gave a mental moan of distress. No wonder why they didn't bring more women around. Hell…what had he gotten himself into?

_Damn this issue better be super bad at the house or I won't let ANYONE rest. They'll never hear the end of it!_

* * *

"…and this is Maeleyn's blood taken off one of her bandages." Don gently tucked the picture up on the illuminator and zoomed in so they could see the three separate branches of her blood: human, turtle, and alligator. They didn't really get what those little vertical lines meant but Donnie would soon explain.

"Aw don't tell me we're related to her, or that Bishop somehow slipped her our DNA!" Mikey cried out in a whine. That would make what he saw Maeleyn and Raphael doing _so _disgusting. Donnie shook his head 'no'.

"But this is what IS troubling." He pulled up four smaller sheets to compare to hers, circling in a bold red marker a single line on all of them. "This is her strain of turtle DNA, emididae. She doesn't match any of us."

"Well," Mikey grinned, "Raph will be happy to know that!" Leo shushed him with narrowed eyes as Splinter waved his hand once. Donnie must've found something big if he was bringing up DNA sheets.

"While she doesn't match our DNA she definitely matches another turtle's DNA. It lines up with parts of Leatherhead DNA, here," he drew a star on Maeleyn's third line of alleles. "This is bad because that means Leatherhead and this…other animal…have things in common."

Leo sheathed his swords and leaned back into his chair. So how would a turtle be able to share genes with Leatherhead, who was a crocodile? Was it because they were in the reptile class?

"So we have a Frankenturtle walking around?" Mikey asked curiously. Donatello shrugged.

"Maybe not _around_, Mikey but the DNA indicates we have a turtle roughly around the size of _Leatherhead_ still alive. He was Maeleyn's base for her turtle DNA."

"Spookular." Mikey shivered. He only hoped said turtle wasn't rabid. Then it would be like a man-eating turtle! Or like those other easily cliché monster movies that were a result of steroid-based animal governmental projects gone AWOL..

Don took down the X-Ray like slides of Maeleyn's DNA breakdown and sighed. They were pretty much against the diffuser shot for her (they would leave it up to her) but ultimately decided it would be wise to make some just in case anything they rescued were in early stages of the mutation and wanted a reversal. He wondered what a diffusing shot would do to Maeleyn. By now her blood had settled and bonded as well as it could - if she was tempted to go back completely human she may very well die, as she wasn't engineered to be totally human anymore.

"Great," Leo grumbled. "Another experiment is just what we need."

"As long as it's a female." Mikey grinned, to which Splinter gave him ten flips.

"_-and in other news today the amazingly large animal admitted to the Manhattan Zoo has escaped. We're not quite sure how such a large animal escaped but the cage was empty early this morning and the handler is also gone. Ms. Rose Chaplin is presumed dead."_

They'd almost forgotten they'd left the TV on. Any real television watching hadn't been made today. Mikey usually started the TV watching but he'd been over at April's to play with Klunk before afternoon practice. Donnie paused and ran to the remote to turn the TV up. This was no doubt about Gustav who he'd seen the admittance footage on so early this morning. In the same day they were reporting him missing? He smelled the Foot.

By the way Leo's eye ridges knitted together he knew the others did, too. "So now we have a mean escaped bull and supposedly a really large super turtle. Anyone else feel like we're getting ganged up on?"

"Mikey did you look up the Otis Redding thing like I told you?"

"Before Raph tossed me out? Yeah. Only one song talked about boats, and it wasn't even a boat, it was about docks."

"About docks?" Donnie asked curiously. Mikey nodded, handing him the lyric sheet from the Otis Redding song "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay".

"I don't understand…" Donnie groaned. "This doesn't give us anything specific to go on. We may have to do an all day rotation just to watch the pier." Mikey groaned, very against the idea.

Splinter broke his gaze from the precious home he'd known for so long, remembering that Raphael was the one to find her that month ago submerged in the water. "Or," he offered, "we can ask the one that came from the water." Don lowered his eyes from the lyrics page and grinned as he eyed the pond. Master Splinter _did _know how to take his over complications and simplify them to ease his brain! She did come from the water that day, barely alive, but out of the water all the same meaning the Foot had a base entrance underwater. They could get them totally by surprise!

This whole thing could be nipped in the bud!

"Please, Michelangelo, call your brother and tell him to come home. We have much to talk about."

"Yes, sensei."

* * *

Rilien swallowed nervously as he was forced to kneel before the Shredder. Hopefully he wouldn't have to do this for much longer. Even though he'd only done it twice the act terrified the shit out of him. "Do you have the key, Mr. Spector?"

_Here it comes_, he thought, _I'm going to die!_

"Master Shredder. Please forgive me," a large, hulking blonde male wearing a red three-striped scar on his face had his hair wrapped in a decent length ponytail intruded upon the room, kneeling and compressing his large frame down as a sign of respect and near worship. "They have returned with the animal, and its handler. She claims to have a scientific background."

"Good. Take Mr. Spector with us. I wish to see this…creature and have him checked."

Rilien was seized and the scientist, who, at this point looked like he was a spindly teenager again, tensed up. He had easily lost twenty pound during the month he'd been held in captivity, over worked, and under a great stress due to threats and one live view of just how the Shredder punished failure, courtesy of Stockman. It seemed like everything _in _this facility was falling apart now. The DNA scientists were being 'punished' to the full extent or pushed to other departments because every single experiment had died now, except for this new one they had imported, and all current resuscitations were failing. Nothing new was surviving.

It was like the beginning of the end.

Obviously the Shredder was using what he had left for employed brains to protect the building he owned. Rilien was still in awe how this man could be so evil and play such a gentleman to the society. He'd seen the Shredder out of his threatening suit once and instantly placed the face as the man who'd been noted for giving many charitable donations to the city. This man was preparing for something big. And oddly enough, he was still in it.

He expected to be dead by now. "Check the animal, Spector." Saki ordered as he watched the captive Rose Chaplin flex cautiously in her handcuffs to open the cage and pet Gustav calm. The animal sneered at the new humans, his instincts riled; Gustav was on full alert. That man was _bad_. His big eyes looked to the other scientist and away from the metal figure, the male that looked malnourished and somewhat skeletal in comparison to the cruel, dominating one. This must be the one he was going to help escape whenever they were done testing him.

Gustav let the man check his teeth, hooves, pick them, and measure him from head to foot. Rose, Chaplin, and Rilien created a file for him and soon signed him off into the care of Chaplin and Rose. The animal that had so fondly been called a bape roared in anguish on the inside. Rose had slipped her hand into Chaplin's coat pocket as a means to store what she had in her hand but her hand stayed much longer than it should've. She didn't love him, did she?

How could he have been so stupid? Gustav vaguely suspected that but he didn't want to believe it. _I won't be a fool for you anymore! _he promised himself. _For the last few weeks of my life I have one goal: to hurt you as much as possible, Rose Chaplin._

This meant siding with anyone that vowed to do the same. Who that was he couldn't tell at the moment but once Gustav found them, and deemed their pledge of vengeance to be true he would side with them without any hesitation. Even if that meant siding with the man that had made him.

* * *

Kier had been flown back to Area Fifty-One after confirming Gustav had been analyzed. Bishop was more than pleased. Hardly anything remained before he broke news to the turtles that Rilien had escaped and they _needed _to confront the Shredder before he came back and got more than just one Spector. They would have their guard down and he would take one for his own, the one he needed most: Maeleyn. After her blood analysis returned off the muzzle Betsy, the Hunter's gun, he found her to have regenerative healing capabilities just like the male turtles.

That meant the alien turtle from Dimension X, Slash, had been a wise choice as her base and not too far from the ooze-made turtles. Either way she and Slash would be compatible, and he would have a spawn to call his own. He'd tried and failed at making individual clones of the turtles infused with Utrom goo and the loss drove him insane with want to make a living, breathing bipedal turtle any way he could. Michelangelo's clone refused to eat, Raphael's clone had undergone such rapid muscle expansion that his lungs crushed his heart, Leonardo's clone committed seppuku after learning what he would be used for, and Donatello's clone was terminated in the gestation chamber after showing severe signs of dementia.

Nothing was as good as the original, and that was sad…considering he might have to kill the originals just to get one female original. He felt especially conniving, smart, and 'on top' because he was taking something from the Foot. Bishop activated Gustav's internal control mechanism that he'd yet to do since creating the creature. Everything up until now had been persuaded into action by Rose or himself, seeing as how Gustav had a decent IQ for an experiment. Kier watched as Bishop totally assumed control of the animal (just for the night, he decided, even though he was having fun already turning Gustav into a puppet) and turned him into a camera before typing in on the keyboard.

"Give me a time," Bishop commanded. He wasn't sure when to have Gustav bust a hole in an upper floor or even how to let the beast evacuate long enough to get Rilien safely to shore and die but he could always take suggestions.

"Noon?" Kier tried curiously in slight confusion. Bishop looked at him as if he were an idiot.

"You didn't want help, don't ask." Kier instantly snapped as a reflex. Bishop was an over-licensed ass. "I think noon would be smart because when he escaped he'd be around people going to lunch! He could blend in!"

"Your logic is decent. You have quite the attitude when questioned but you think on your feet. I knew there was a reason I picked you, Mr. Spector. Now…let's see if we can't reunite you with your family, hm?"

"Thank you sir."

"Feel free to abandon your Foot uniform now. Now it's just you and me." of course that wasn't true. Chaplin was feeding him information on Stockman's cyborg suit because apparently, even though he'd told Bishop they would be in an alliance the blueprints Chaplin were feeding him proved to be very scary and very intelligent. Very useful, but probably rejected by the Shredder because they weren't on his original agenda. Stockman was a scary, brilliant man.

And one not short of stomping out his own predators. Well, at least he had the Utrom technology. He began typing.

**Mission: Get Rilien Spector back into society**

**Time: noon**

**Location: …**

Bishop paused. Where was a good place to send him? Of course he'd need a distraction for the final preparations against the alien plus time to meet with the turtles to convince them he was an ally, even if he was a temporary one with an ulterior motive. "Yes…that'll work just fine…" he reinitiated the program to edit the commands for Gustav. This screen would input what he'd typed and leave Gustav to believe he'd dreamed it, or it had been suggested through his conscience or even by someone he trusted, like Rose.

**Location: 2****nd**** Time Around antique shop**


	12. Chapter 12

Enigma

**AN: Thanks and welcome to **Al**, a new reader to the **_**Enigma**_** story. They have no official Fanfic penname so I can't thank them properly but they left a nice review and that did make me smile. Another chapter coming up. I had my senior portraits today and after doing two biology tests I decided to unwind by writing another chapter. Hopefully the readers will be just as fateful to Jezebelle's story as they were to Maeleyn's (although no title for Jezebelle's story has been made feel free to submit ideas because you never know! Something might jump out at me!)**

April giggled as Casey regained his composure from tripping lightly on the raised curb of the street. In the moments he tried to be his cutest, his nicest, he was his clumsiest but that made him too adorable to her. It was nearly infectious. Actually…it made her love him more. The couple had ordered a sub party platter and planned to invite the guys over; April's maternal-esk instinct was calling to her now more than ever to ease the growing worry in her terrapin friends.

She, Casey, and the mutants they knew had been around long enough to know when danger was near and it was almost palpable. Something was definitely coming, and it was big. Vaguely she remembered the nerve-tingling, gut-wrenching feeling of peril hours before the Shredder had tried to incinerate them all in her basement. These feelings were the very same…just a few years apart. "Aren't you just a gentleman?" April teased as she kissed Casey on the cheek, ducking under his arm while he held the door open, large bag holding the platter creating a small space for her to slip through.

He grinned crookedly to her. "I may not be able to do a lot of things but I can be nice." Casey informed proudly as he let the door fall shut behind him, the echo of the tiny gold bell plastered above the door ringing merrily.

"You can keep being nice and go set up the platter in the living room for me?" April had a duty to her shop, and minimal cleaning needed to be done before she re-opened for the after-lunch hour where her sales were highest. Stuffed, lazy people liked to take street strolls and were more inclined to purchase as they became absorbed in the window shopping. She listened to her loveable Goliath's footsteps recede upwards and smiled fondly at him, sliding her hands casually off her hips to readjust minor disarray around her cash register. Her woman-inspired pickiness carried her up the stairs to assume takeover of platter arrangement and a small layout of condiments (which would be added to when the guys arrived. They ate nearly anything) before deeming Casey competent enough to have the living room comfortable and to call the guys over.

They deserved something nice, and besides, she needed more time to know Maeleyn. Although the conversations they had yesterday were very fulfilling to her highly unsatisfied female part that could only be filled by a fellow female. She and Maeleyn had nearly polar opposite tastes in movies, an understanding concerning music, and stern but acceptable defenses for their clothing preferences. The redhead giggled at the image of Raphael about to die of boredom once they hit the subject of eyeliner and which type worked better for who. The poor thing.

A bit more pep in her step April hit the shop level and smiled cheerily. At the prospect of having a female friend and to just see her boys relax everything around her seemed to be touched with golden warmth unable to be ruined. Given Maeleyn's healing status April left the backdoor open just in case the guys found that the easier route to take today (who knew how hard they were working themselves with this danger hanging in the air?) and moved to fix the door for them.

_Crash_! "If that was Robert again I'm calling his mother. I've told him once not to bring that bouncy ball in here." April scowled for a brief second before making her steps obnoxious and blatant as she moved to the front of the shop. Her eyes jumped back and forth, the redhead felt a shortness of breath in her. It felt like she was seeing a movie outside her shop windows, or that she was looking through the eyes of someone else, maybe in a dream. People were running around in all directions outside the windows, and she could see two different cars crushed in at points or completely ruined, glass twinkling on the concrete.

Smoke tinted the air and what police were on the street attempted to stop any speedy traffic from hitting any panicking pedestrians. She could see the cause for the panic, now. "Please…" this thin, sickly man was shaking hard as he gripped the side of her counter hard beneath his hand, knuckles whiter than snow, "please help me." he looked like he hadn't eaten in some time.

"Oh no!" he collapsed and she did her best to catch him. April hadn't had to lift anything heavy in a while, but he wasn't too heavy. Small, frail. "Casey! CASEY!" so Casey didn't have speed in him, and unless correctly channeled his adrenaline worked against him-which it did in his case-but he'd come faithfully to her shrill, worried call.

"April, babe, what is it?"

"I…I don't know. Casey, he needs help! Look at him!" Casey Jones took a look at this frail, sallow man slumped over in his fiancée's arms and swallowed hard. The poor male nearly looked like death warmed over with his unshaven beard accenting and drawing in the gauntness of his face like a drawstring bag. Evident in the bags under his eyes he hadn't been sleeping well, and by the way his trousers hung off his hips despite the extreme tightness of his belt he obviously wasn't being fed very well. Maybe neglected.

"Easy there, pal. You need help? You got someone we can get you to? You like hospitals? Wanna go to a hospital?" a small wheeze answered him and April cradled the head of the person gently, like a child. Rilien's once beautiful, wavy curls of hair so healthy and shiny were grungy and dim, like the last light of the only candle fighting total darkness. The two could make out a small negative headshake.

"Please…stay…Gustav…stay. Escape. Escape…freedom. Maeleyn…" the brown eyes of the figure rolled as the body succumbed to malnutrition and blacked out. April's heart thrust her body into fight or flight mode, utter panic.

"We need to feed him, or get some sort of liquid nutrition going. Call Donnie, call Maeleyn! More than likely we'll need a liquid transfusion until he's better. Help me get him up to the living room; if he escaped we need to hide him." she grabbed his feet as Casey slipped his hands under the man's armpits and together they hefted the body up and prepared to carry him up the steps.

Casey was no more than two steps past the cash register when he gave a startled cry and dropped his half of the human being. "CASEY!" April exclaimed. Whatever fiber of consciousness this man had was surely gone now. The sharp thud of his head on the wood floor had certainly been a good reason for his stillness. "Babe…" Casey tried to defend himself, holding his hands up like a criminal, "you gotta see this!" carefully setting their fallen escapee's feet down April peeked cautiously behind the cash register.

A large, black animal that almost didn't fit behind the counter was breathing low and hard behind it, almost as if in sleep. Red eyes gazed at them and the mouth of the animal opened a little wider, the labored breathing more pronounced. "Casey…I think it's hurt." she couldn't see any blood but that didn't mean it hadn't been hit. There were pretty large dents on the cars mere feet from her shop.

"My name…" it said in a whisper, "is Gustav. I have completed my mission. I have freed Rilien Spector. Please…help. Hide me until it's over."

"Until what's over?" April asked curiously, crouching down to the animal as she tentatively placed a hand on the fuzzy head and stroked it once like she would Klunk's silky fur. Were Leo and the others right? Was some sort of war really too close for anyone else to realize? Was humanity in danger again like the Triceratons had once made it?

"My termination," said the wise, almost melancholy voice as if it were the most obvious thing on the planet. "I was predicted to die before the war being. I just want to rest until it's over." Gustav hated to admit it but he'd taken almost a complete three-sixty turn in just a day. Only a day ago he was inspired by a fierce vengeance created from jealousy, but now he felt sicker than a dog. The deterioration must've been catalyzed by his anger. _Rose!_, he scowled, hating how the woman could kill him without being anywhere near him.

What was probably an estimated two weeks of life left to live may not even be three days at this rate. Bishop had failed to tell him the disease correlated with hormones and activity levels, with pulse. Then again, he wouldn't have counted on Bishop anyways. The animal knew far more about the man just from being on the other side of the cage than most of his associates would by dealing with him. Bishop was the type to use and throw away; to invite in and hide at the same time (why else would Kier be working for him unless he didn't really _know _why Bishop wanted the Spector family back together?). Gustav was just a piece past its prime, and the piece was being taken off the board.

"Can you still move?"

"Yes." whispered Gustav. His body felt heavy from the recent manic spurt of activity but he still had energy left. It just weighed heavy on his mind the fact he knew his bodily health wasn't very good, or reversible. With an airy groan Gustav hauled himself up and climbed the stairs with the energy of a drooping old dog. The pale female shivered relentlessly as the paranoia began to mount in her mind.

Once upon a time the government had hunted down her boys and exposed them in the streets under the impression of tanks and loaded weapons. She'd almost lost Leonardo as he took a chance and crashed a truck into one of the oncoming vehicles to give them more time. April would never forget the flames of that explosion. It was all happening again! They were closing in on them!

Her goals were clear though: get the boys where she could see them and protect them. Feed the science-dressed man passed out in her living room upstairs, make sure to hide the dying bull creature, and lie to the approaching police officer inquiring her as he stepped up with his shiny badge and the gun blatantly hanging off the side of his left hip.

* * *

Raphael was eaten up with amusement. He and Maeleyn had energy to rival live gunpowder. Clearly it was a mistake for the terrapin to think things would be taken slow and sweet, as TV often portrayed relationship but they just had to be different, didn't they? He didn't mind. Maybe it was from her previous relationships but whenever he and Maeleyn weren't putting on a show of being pissed at each other she came alive with the heated passion of a fire and the caress of starved lover. They played off of each other like that; she was rough, he was rough.

His brain went into a comfortable fog and he only felt the light scratches, bites, or even heard the noises after he came back. The turtle's lips would always pulse-the only real reminder they had made out again besides the darkening scrapes along his arms. Damn she was good. "I love how you smell…" her tail swished and flexed in a hypnotic, serpentine-like curl from left to right and back again as she sniffed him fondly.

It was the pheromones, but he loved the fact she thought he smelled good. "Mmm…"

"Don could explain it to you but you're finally startin' to smell like a turtle."

"So I don't smell human anymore?" Maeleyn asked curiously, drawing her gold-tinted eyes up to his, her left hand up on his shoulder and her right scratching idly at the grooves in his plastron. He grinned.

"You smell feminine and girly. Don't get me wrong…gotta be your soap or somethin' but your turtle nose is finally there. You smell us…or me. Turtle to turtle, you know?"

"Got'cha. You smell very…manly for a turtle." Maeleyn smiled brightly. Hell, he smelled _great_ for a turtle. Manly was an understatement. The raw presence of male she'd only previously smelt on the bare chest of a freshly showered man was _all _over him with the unique musk only those in the animal kingdom could have, specific to turtles and their species and their chemical, biological signals. Raphael's smallest defining scent was sweat, nearly insignificant since he'd showered mere minutes ago, but he smelled strongly of pizza, his room, and some sort of motor oil.

Actually…the comforting smell of a garage area and gas was a perfect way to describe him. It was a comforting smell. "You smell like motor oil." Maeleyn mused. Raphael smirked, dangling one leg off the lab table and leaning back onto his arms. She didn't know how to _not _stroke his ego.

"Don's the main turtle for the mechanics but he did teach me how to tune up my bike, you know."

"A bike? What kind of bike? No one tells me about the cool stuff around here!"

"Hey," typical Mikey, typical of a little sibling, the youngest cut in with a big, goofy grin. "They told you about me!" he batted his eyes and Maeleyn smiled at him. He was too adorable for his own good.

"Get lost, Mike."

"Can't," the little brother informed with false solemnity, "Doctor Donnie told me to hunt down his patient and request she pay another visit to the Underground Manhattan Clinic." Raphael rolled his eyes. "That and I was out to see if you guys broke your face-sucking record yet or if you were actually _not _stuck together." sticking his tongue out and giggling he zipped out of the room, Raphael not too far behind him.

She grinned. This family…her family…made her feel so good. Normal, almost, which was funny because she never felt this happy when she was human. And she was far from normal here, but it was okay. After Don had explained to her and Raphael yesterday about her mysterious base DNA donator healing made more sense, the speed of it anyways.

Yesterday Donatello had gone deeper than he had yet in her blood analysis and compared hers and Raphael's DNA side by side to prove a point (just because it had been Raphael's wound courtesy of Leo he was stitching up at the time). They had Utrom inspired regenerative DNA; her DNA was somewhat similar, definitely alien class but not Utrom, and accented with steroids. Donatello chalked up the steroid part to governmental, genetic tampering to ease her discomfort with having steroids-which she'd protested thoroughly as a human-in her body. Her healing, by his logic and proofs he'd provided, was slightly faster than theirs which was good. It made up for her lack of lethal ability and complimented her endurance.

Her sides were still aching in pain but the darkness and tenderness the iron grip of Gustav were lesser than what it had been, especially since Don had been administering the numbing agent. Administering the usual pressure tests and waiting for a response for Maeleyn, or comparing it to her healthy vitals from his book, he answered the ringing shell cell without skipping a beat, eight pokes away from being done. "Hey April, what's up?" cradling the phone between his chin and shoulder the color left the olive turtle's face and his hand dropped from Maeleyn's side.

"We'll be right over."

"What's wrong brainiac?" Raphael didn't like the look on his little brother's face and leaned curiously over the couch. The tightness and fear on his little brother's face wasn't too usual. Don had quite the pair when facing danger and he only got the look he had now when something was really wrong. That same look stopped Michelangelo from making a technology-based joke.

"Maeleyn….we found your uncle."

"WHAT?" the she-turtle forgot about her side pains, forgot about the cold tingle of the drying numbing agent and let her head whirl crazily in a spin. Her uncle. Rilien, alive! He was okay!

"That-that's great! What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

"We might have to hold off. April used the codeword for cops."

"Cops?" Leo responded at the trigger word and immediately turned to the TV. Cops don't just show up for nothing. Something had to have happened. Mikey, being the closest turned on the TV like a good channel surfer. The brothers crowded around the large collection of TVs as a long reel of interviewed pedestrians described a charging, large animal carrying a human through the streets before the camera footage panned to two crashed cars outside the antique shop, a crater-like footprint in the concrete.

"Looks like our big bull dude is back." Mikey noted.

"But why save Rilien?" Donnie asked aloud. "Why save the man that probably helped make you?" something was wrong. It just didn't make sense. Usually any creation, as displayed in the sci-fi movies he and Mikey liked to watch, turned on their creators. Splinter's whiskers twitched before he spoke; absorbing the new set of testimonies they played.

"_It just came out of nowhere! I mean, here I am sitting in the coffee shop and it runs by with that poor man over it's shoulder! The poor guy was bouncing like a ragdoll!" _

"_So as you can see from our testimonials and footage the large animal is still, indeed alive. Still no news on its handler, Rose Chaplin, but it has been confirmed that this creature ran from north Manhattan to somewhere in the lower south."_

"How much you wanna bet he busted out of Shredder's headquarters?" Raphael hissed in a growl. Maeleyn shook her head.

"I don't think so. When I escaped I had to go underwater. They had an underwater exit."

"Doesn't mean they didn't have a land one. You're a completely different species than Gustav, they probably kept you away from the land one, especially since they wanted to gear you towards aquatic activities." Don pointed out. She'd give him that.

"Call April back, Don. We need to get over there as soon as possible." Leo demanded. Surely the Shredder wouldn't let this go without a reaction for long. What could be his key developer was now gone, missing. This was surely a signal for the beginning.

* * *

"Find him, you idiots! I said _find him_!" Shredder slammed his hands down firmly on his table and scowled, getting up at last. Apparently the old saying still applied; if anything needed to be done he should do it himself. It seemed like all his underlings were doing happened to be running around with their heads cut off. His security system alerted him of a breach, Hun the one to report it but the Shredder was perplexed; no image of the turtles around whatsoever. Not one of his remaining employees described the green ninjas as a cause of the incident.

It took him a few minutes to realize that meant, then, the escape had been an internal thing. Shredder scowled, swiftly climbing in to his metal suit to be ready for whatever it was that had caused the pandemonium and stalked down to the twelfth floor where the breach had occurred. "Report, this instant!" someone had better or a lot of heads would roll.

Karai stepped up to his side and bowed in respect before answering for the quaking scientists. The room that had been breached was Gustav's room; instead of keeping the dying creature in a cage he was given a decent-sized room with equipment to maximize what was left of his usefulness. A treadmill in the bottom right corner four inches from the door, a set of weights along the back wall varying in sizes a normal human would weigh to something nearly impossible for a human to lift, and a mat for sleeping had stayed in place. They hadn't planned the structure of his room very well, apparently; the intelligent creature had swung the largest set of weights out the window creating a large open maw of glass and escaped with his 'doctor' out the glass teeth into Manhattan. To collect or not collect?

Most assuredly he was gone but this escape could prove useful. The turtles had been awfully quiet and if this 'Maeleyn' had escaped almost a month and a half ago undoubtedly she would've found the do-gooders by now. And if Rilien escaped she'd be looking for him. If he bided his time until the scientist was healthy it was almost set in stone that the turtles and the missing experiment would be hiding him; he could nail three birds with one stone if he was patient. By his calculations it would take Rilien a few weeks to recover from his malnourished state, if not a whole month.

He then called off the search for their large beast, the key to the experiment success. "But father!" Karai exclaimed incredulously, "If we let him go we might not catch him again! We've lost too much already!"

"You see, Karai, I'm thinking of the big picture. Predictability, my daughter. Where do all our victims seem to go?" it didn't take his brilliant daughter long.

"To the turtles."

"Indeed. Those green menaces are probably stumbling upon the professor and our misfit pet as we speak so if we want to finally annihilate our enemies why not wait until they're preoccupied with other things?"

"Their guard will be down…"

"It will." the Shredder purred evilly from his suit and Karai slowly tucked her sword back in the sheath. It made sense, but _giving _the enemy freedom to attract more enemies? The practice was uncommon but it had been done before; when they displayed Splinter kidnapped the turtle had run to them without a second thought. But now they were doing it backwards; letting the victims run to the turtles. Undoubtedly they would cry 'the Foot, the Foot!' in the fashion of a true victim and it would begin.

Leonardo's stern morals and predictability incited by honor would confirm a future meeting of the two warring sides. "As you wish, father." Karai bowed and went to help the underling Foot members clean and secure the rest of the building.

"We have other pressing matters…" the Shredder whispered as he looked to his small table to see a bloody chip about the size of a computer chip. It had been extracted from Gustav earlier this morning after it showed up on an X-ray scan. The Shredder smelled Bishop. Chaplin, brilliant Chaplin, figured out how to 'read' this chip and showed him the information on it.

On the chip was a rather cocky Bishop grinning coolly and telling him just how and why Gustav ran away, and where he was headed. Bishop was _giving _them the refuge of their victims. _Why?_ the Shredder wanted to cry out angrily, _why do this?_ To be so nice and generous with information made the alien think the turtles' had more allies than what he once assumed, and that Bishop was also aware of what they had been doing all along with the experiments.

The chip video played on. _"Say I help you out. Say I get you a turtle. All you have to do is turn yourself in and give me some samples, Ch'rell. Leave your…daughter…to deal with the rest of what you call an empire, start off your army with a turtle hybrid and we'll call it even. A fair trade."_

This perplexed the Shredder. Bishop was always against helping him because he was an alien, and Bishop was on the EPA. Why do it now? Obviously the turtles played as bait for the moment but the idea was nice. It was an option to have. Knowing Bishop, however, there was an ulterior motive and what he'd just promise would be a lie. _"Feel free to contact me if you want to make a deal. And by the way, I'm aware of the weak status of your 'empire' and I could very well seize your whole fort at this very second but I won't. I'm a nice guy, Ch'rell. A lot nicer than I should be to you. If you're looking for someone to blame before you get your hands on the turtles blame your beloved Chaplin. He was feeding me this whole time."_

**END TRANSMISSION.**

"CHAPLIN SEE ME AT ONCE!" Saki slammed the device down and scowled. To alleviate his anger the Shredder sharpened and polished his gauntlet. He continued to polish and sharpen his gauntlet as the weasel-esk redhead cautiously came into his room and shut the door. Just like last time, except it was the male instead of the female. The wide black eyes watched him polish and sharpen the gauntlet until it was clean enough for him to see his face and the arm Shredder was swinging towards him.

A great cry echoed the room and Karai popped her head up with a start. Chaplin? Chaplin had done this to her and her father? Why? How?

_No…_she tried to think positively. _Chaplin wouldn't…clearly there's been a mistake! Why would Chaplin…? Of course!_ Karai turned sharply on her foot and went to seek out the _other _Chaplin. The one that _had _to be responsible for this escape of information. Karai didn't take into account Rose had been with them only a day or two but she'd been with them previously before disappearing. It could've easily been her to tell Bishop all of their secrets!

Karai always hated that bitch. Trying to steal Chaplin. She couldn't get it through her dumb, blonde head that her thoughts were immoral and of incest, and that her brother refused to love her in that way. Time to pay her a visit of her own. She came upon the blonde crying and bandaging the stump that once indicated Chaplin's right hand; Karai almost let a lone tear slip -she hadn't cried in a while, but then again…nothing her father had done yet could move her enough to make tears.

He was hurt. The man she'd been so afraid to say she loved was hurt. Missing an appendage, because of her father. Because of his sister and her insolence, actually. "Oh, Chaplin! You'll be okay! Stockman and I can make you a nice metal hand, or we can put some heated latex on the metal skeleton. It'll be alright!" she kissed his temple as Chaplin continued to shiver from shock.

"When you're done with your brother see me outside at once."

"Yes, Karai." thirty minutes later, after stopping the blood and correctly affixing a bandage and concealing part to her brother's latest deformity she cautiously stepped outside the room, the computerized door shutting softly behind her. Karai seized her by the throat and slammed her into the nearby wall.

"I know what you're doing, and I will not let you take down anyone else." she vowed. Rose smirked. A grim, thin line on her pretty face, cool as ice.

"I already have, Karai. And if it makes you sick at night I'll take down your daddy, too. Grant it I didn't expect Bishop to rat anyone out but he didn't specify which Chaplin, and the damage is already done. We're closing in. You just don't understand."

"Then explain, before I decide to specify which Chaplin." she hissed. Rose's smirk grew.

"Fine." the girl smirked cheerily. "You and your father's pathetic empire will fall, Bishop will still have his stock of experiments and _I_'_ll _be with Chaplin. Clear enough for you?" she released Rose. It was the better thing to do; Karai knew herself and she knew if her grip had stayed she would've snapped her neck. Her father wouldn't have looked too nicely upon that; they were stretched so thin with employees in general that losing anymore scientists by any means was detrimental.

She walked away, trying not to hear the satisfied, maniacal giggle of Rose Chaplin.

* * *

"Rilien? Oh Rilien! Unkie Rilien!" Maeleyn felt like she was looking on a cherub baby in the hospital instead of her sickly uncle. Or at least seeing him was as beautiful as seeing a newborn baby. April and Casey had pried the cuffs off his wrists and the indentions were bright on his skin but he was alright! He was sleeping, and Don had just finished making the nutrition shots. His stomach was far too weak to handle solids for a while.

She kissed Rilien like crazy, smoothing back his dingy curls. There were no words to describe how ecstatic she was. "He's back. He's back! I'm so happy!" she fawned over the sleeping man like he was her idol. Don was very calm, quiet, serious, and doctor-like. Leonardo was waiting and peeking out the slightest bit of curtained window for Splinter who had gone back to the lair to retrieve something he wanted (though he wouldn't say what), Mikey munching on a sub and helping April cook some cookies he had a craving for, and Raphael was just looking at this human.

Maeleyn loved this man. Shredder had hurt this man. By rights of romancing his niece Raphael should be pissed; on the contrary he was scared shitless. What happened if her family didn't approve of him? What if they _made _her take the diffusion shot because they didn't like how she looked? Either thought killed him because in both he lost her. "Left over batter?" Mikey offered in hopes to cheer up his elder brother.

Cookie batter was by far Raphael's favorite rare food. They all knew Raphael was in some deep emotions if he declined cookie batter, which he did. Mikey pouted. His nervous energy was exhausted by intensive cooking and seeing his family still at odds with this discovery when they were trying to still solve the Otis Redding mystery wasn't helping. It had definitely been unsuspected, to see this man pop up at last.

"Dude's definitely out." Mikey commented as he quit waving the third sandwich under the man's nose. April rolled her eyes. Casey was nearly as tense as Leo, patting his bat rhythmically on his legs. The cop cars continued a slow-circling patrol. A faint scratching at the window made Leo jump to his feet.

Splinter was back.

The old rat smiled as he slipped through the window like smoke through the fingers of a hand. "I felt now was a better time than ever to talk of family expansion." Raphael flushed crimson, as did Maeleyn. He had a feeling this was coming. Master Splinter highly entertained the idea of grand children, especially since Mikey let it slip how they 'tolerated' each other yesterday.

"It is time for you to no longer be a number. It is time for you to be a daughter again, Miss Spector." he strained the material of a dark slate gray bandanna through his furry paws.

She felt lightheaded but recognized her own pulse in her body, telling her she was very much alive despite feeling short of breath. They wanted her in the family! They wanted her! Someone to call her daughter again and someone who would take her no matter how she looked…

"For now, let us eat and relax. If Mr. Spector was indeed able to escape then we most assuredly have enemies coming out of hiding to retrieve him. And soon."

"Alright guys, try to be quiet so you don't wake him." April easily moved around the sleeping man that took up only the couch as she situated the collection of sandwich condiments across her brown coffee table, adding much more to the original choices. They picked curiously and with some level of relaxation at the sandwich fixings before finding some way to mellow out. It was mostly found in hushed conversation.

They were absolutely shocked to see this scientist still alive, especially given the month he spent with the Shredder. A victim, captured. Disappeared off the face of the earth, erased until he was found. Her real family was home. Raphael felt torn, confused. He'd just told her that he loved her…or showed her…he wasn't good with words.

And now her real family, her original family, came back into the picture. Would she go with them? Or would she stay? Was he enough alone to convince her to stay with them, to stay as she was? He wasn't sure anymore. Raphael thought he was…hoped he was.

* * *

Bishop made his move early the next morning, close to two a.m. it was now or never to approach them and explain. Luckily he had the Shredder's reply video to help convince the turtles. A little bit of splicing may have been done to make it seem threatening but it would work. He had government orders to call off the snooping police, EPA and all related branches assuming a huge duty to cover up Gustav and the genetic experiments. Once the boys in blue pulled away he spied via the small, built-in computer camera on April O'Neil's computer to see the condition of the occupants.

"All there…" he whispered after counting them. Jones was armed with a bat; he'd have to be careful. But Maeleyn was there. Hacking into her computer he was able to zoom in and see the nutrition IV system one of the brighter minds had set up, and judging on the laptop monitoring the vitals the large portions of needed nutrients would decrease the amount of time Rilien needed to wake in a decent manner. However, two geniuses couldn't reverse a month of malnutrition.

He would bide his time but make the 'threat' from the Shredder known now. It would convince them in the long run to be his allies, and draw the suspicion somewhat off of him. The last of the experiments were being shifted to the Manhattan base today, anyways. He would have nothing pointing the finger at him; the worst they could do, if they ever found out anything, was complain about him manipulating others.

Nothing else. Files of the people that had once been people (and were now just numbers) were compromised and erased. They were all just numbers now. He jimmied the back door open and crept up the stairs, being especially quiet. Through the computer he could see that the turtle teens were all hard sleepers. Casey Jones was, too. Splinter was nowhere to be seen in the short range of the computer screen.

It was cruel but funny in his mind. To wake them all he'd give them a very real nightmare: Shredder's video recording played in April O'Neil's small VCR device.

"_I will not stop until I am given Spector. Until my demand is met people will die, new monsters will be made. The monsters I have made will wreak havoc upon the city and the number will grow. I accept no interference; humanity will accept no other deity. I am the Shredder!"_

The redhead woke up in a cold sweat, near screaming at the nauseatingly evil voice grumbling through her home. She felt violated almost. To hear such evil slip into her home. April really did scream whenever the light reflected off a pair of black shades, highlighting the slightly warmed human face in a ghoulish silvery-white glow.

"Hello Ms. O'Neil."

Leo, like the others, snapped up. He was the first to act - his swords out and thrust forward violently. If Mikey had gotten up any faster he could've injured his little brother.

"Bishop." hissed the leader. "What do you want?"

"A friendly exchange." Bishop smiled, easing out of his crooked lean on April's TV. "I have information you may want. Especially you…Maeleyn Spector. My name is Agent Bishop. I'm from the EPA, commonly known as the Earth Protection Agency, and I am the man that's helping your father to find you."

"Then what's your other motive?" Donatello asked instantly, without skipping a beat. Bishop wasn't the type of person to waltz around and be _friendly _just to be altruistic.

"Taking down the Shredder, and I think you can help." Splinter moved to the forefront of the triangle-like shape of people protecting the unconscious Rilien Spector.

"We are listening, Mr. Bishop."

"I thought you would."


	13. Chapter 13

**AN: Thanks for the two newest reviews by **FeatherGirl13 **and the new **Backseat Writer** both reviews were appreciated. I have to give homage to **Backseat Writer **for the lovely critique and longwinded review that caused me to think and brought me to address some of her curiosities that more of you might actually have, or thought about. Okay…here we go:**

**1. Sorry if I do seem to be rushing. At some points it may seem like I am and that's mainly for the concern I have with keeping readers. I'm not sure how long any of you would be willing to stay with the story, as no such indicator has been made by anyone. However, in further scrutiny I realize this is no reason to sacrifice quality; if the story calls for more chapters than more chapters it is. I'd be failing myself as a writer if I sacrificed quality. If people want to read it they'll read it.**

**2. Skipping the Gustav and Rilien escape scene is something I did not neglect :). Usually if I leave an important scene out I'm going to use it to open the next chapter, as seen in chapter two and again in chapter five. So the scene is not indeed skipped, it will be in this chapter :D.**

**3. The views on Maeleyn: we're nearing the climax and I've made subtle hints along the way as to how they saw her. For example, Mikey likes to joke with her, Don sees her as an eternal patient in need of the not-so-naughty examination, Raphael once saw her as a rival but clearly sees her as an 'interest' (I've played off of Raphael the most), and Leo sees her (when she's on his side) as an ally. When she acts closer to Raphael's nature she's a slight bother. Splinter is acting like a second Kier in this instance; he's happy to see her alive, thinks she brings some color to the area, and certainly has her own personality which exists to compliment and reign in the guys with much more fierceness and bluntness than he has the heart to display. He also wanted to be nice, seeing her newness to the mutation and obvious/somewhat internal struggle of self-identity and decided to **_**help **_**her with that by giving her a bandanna, and thus the title of 'Hamato' she can choose to use.**

**He's had the bandanna/celebration idea since chapter nine, just for clarification. More or less his fatherhood instincts have taken over and he wants her in the family because he knows how hard it was to raise the boys and knowing no one else would be like them. **

**Alright, that's all of it I believe. I will touch more on all of these points now that I've clarified them while I'm writing. Because the author's note was so long there will be a division to separate it from the actual chapter, just as in chapter ten. Once again, thank you all for the reviews, I appreciate all of them very much :). Also: sorry for the lapses between 'Specter' and 'Spector' sometimes I forget which one I've used.**

* * *

Rilien twitched in his sleep, caught in the scene so vivid from yesterday. Or at least he thought it was yesterday. His body was so tired, so empty, that he didn't mind staying in his current condition. Being here in whatever state he was in felt much better than having so much pressure on his last wired nerve, and under the growing press of his guilty conscience. He would never be the same after this, and he knew it. So much had happened…his morals had to be sacrificed for his own life, and that made him feel worse than the physical hunger and dizziness he'd suffered for a month.

The scientist didn't want to know what day it was, or how he'd have to wake up; to who. He wanted to be still and quiet, and passed over like camouflage. Just Rilien Spector again. Not a murderer, not a victim, not starved and weak. Specter swore her heard voices but he wasn't sure; things danced in and out, but he knew definitely there were no lights on him, he wasn't wincing.

_He was doing the vitals on the only surviving-and yet dying-experiment left in the whole facility, watching the ease in which he pumped each level of iron for five repetitions of twenty. While he could personally prescribe about two healthy weeks of life Gustav was showing much more endurance and strength than what he expected for his window of time. The bape was fine, grunting, snorting, causing smooth ripples in his silky fur, and nearly done. Rilien clicked the stopwatch after the second to last weight set, calculating his full time for the five repetitions to be a little under three minutes._

_That was more than good for a mutant, especially one for his size and with the weight he dealt with. Gustav took a break so Rilien could measure the enzymes in his body, the activity, and observe whether or not the strain and speed had done anything to his muscles. Nope. All good. The bape was happy to have a break._

"_Here big guy, towel down." Rilien offered the animal a towel, which was accepted with a small snort as the documented pulse lowered to normal. Gustav was quiet as always, but the bape was looking at him more nowadays. Talking was made in 'on again, off again' spurts. Today was an 'on again' spurt._

_Gustav always opened with, "You're thin, Rilien. Getting thinner, I believe." out of all his handlers Rilien was the only one he talked to. Rose was getting the cold shoulder. Rilien smiled a bit. Having an intelligent conversation was soothing; and having someone as big as Gustav around him when people sought him out was comforting. It made him feel like he had a bit of power back after being subjected to dictatorship for a little over a month._

_Actually…it felt like having Kier next to him. Rilien wasn't sure where he'd gone since a day or two ago but most certainly knew his brother wasn't among the Foot anymore. That more than anything comforted him. All the scientist could do was smile; Gustav was just trying to make it relaxing and somewhat normal for both of them, seeing as how they were in the same captivity boat. "I might be," he conceded, "but my will is still strong."_

"_Indeed. I still believe we should have a middle ground on this idea of ours."_

"_We shouldn't talk about that, Gustav. You know that. For now we'll keep quiet. Once we get on the outside…if we get on the outside, then we can find someone to help us."_

"_If you say so, Rilien." the bape went quiet, but his ears twitched. People were coming. He stretched his neck, pointing his head towards the door. Foot members; he could smell them. Clean, washed ones giving off normal, healthy doses of pheromones while he and Rilien had to sit here dingy most days and hungry on others. It astounded him how they treated one of their own like him. Rilien was given very meager meals, and had they not fed Gustav food for an animal he would more than share with the tiny human._

_Something in his brain began to buzz, or felt like it. The feeling grew until he felt a numbness, a gnawing, on his mind. Before his eyes, like some sort of computer script laying in front of all he saw a message grew. It was scary; his large heart hammered hard._

_All at once it connected in his brilliant mind; the mental analogy of him being a piece was all too true. He was indeed a piece. And one made more computer than animal. He had never truly been free; Bishop lied to him, too. How many more would he lie to? Rose, Chaplin, Kier?_

_It was sick._

"_You, get away from the beast. Shredder wants to see you now. It doesn't work. You _lied_." Gustav bolted up the instant he saw Rilien skitter back and grope blindly for anything he could swing. They'd found out. They were going to kill him. The beast stood on his back legs and stretched to his full height, growling at the two that dared retrieve the last friend he had with blatant intention of killing him._

"_Back off!" Rilien would be safe, saved. The message behind his eyes had told him so, and he could only guess it was handiwork of Bishop. That meant there was still hope, and the attack Bishop and Rose had talked about forever (so it seemed) was still on. Knowing that he knew what he had to do; help Rilien escape. He wasn't doing it for Bishop, and most certainly not for Rose; he was doing it for Rilien._

_Rilien was his friend, his new friend. Rilien also had a like cause to go against the Foot. With Rose being introduced to the Foot he could also see them having a like cause against the Chaplins, too. The Foot operatives advanced with a needle poised in their hands; he knew what that was. He'd seen it too many times in the cages that were scraped clean and melted down hours later._

"_I said _back off_!" Gustav, much more threatening by nature, seized the largest set of weights and swung them._

_By logic he was going to either kill the two attempted murderers or create an escape hole. Either one he could work with. The broad arc of his swing had met no resistance (bodies) and the motion of his swing carried the heavy weight in a full circle with his body. At one point he let go; hoping to do damage to the other bodies they called as reinforcement to kill them both. This was the beginning of the resistance._

_His weights smashed through the only window he had for sunshine and pieces twinkled below the gaping hole. A noisy clang of the weights meeting the sidewalk echoed and he seized the shaking scientist before leaping out. Gustav had been taught how to handle cargo in delicate situations; and did the same thing he would've done to Maeleyn had she not been rescued and they were charging through broken glass._

_He covered Rilien's head and basically curled the human into a comfortable 'c' shape before bending a furry arm around him to act as a tough, fuzzy veil and leaped. For two or three minutes he lost his stomach to gravity and the falling feeling but he landed on the thick, hard substance of his hoove-like feet._

_Rilien gripped his short fur hard, like a baby monkey would do to a mother and Gustav took off. Running on all fours was the fastest, and Gustav hunkered low for speed and to cut wind resistance. Cars honked and swerved wildly when he refused to stop or divert from the straight path. The night he met Kier with Bishop he'd had a tour of the city, and the haven, 2nd Time Around, was near._

_He remembered seeing it. Bishop had always told him these would be the people to look for; they were connected to the other mutants. And with what he knew from training these other mutants, the very same he had assaulted for their female, were the biggest thorn in Bishop's side. He would now become their ally, and Maeleyn would once again have her family. It was the least he could do; especially in his efforts to fuck everyone from Rose Chaplin to Saki._

_His friend must've been knocked unconscious by the velocity or movements of his active body because when he pulled the man off his shoulder, when he hid in the antique shop as the cops began to circle and follow the path of destruction, Rilien was holding his side and his head was slack. He was coming to, though. No bleeding on Rilien so his self-made protection must've worked…but it didn't mean he wasn't hurt on the inside. The poor human was starved and amazingly weak. Gustav felt sick himself._

_His ears hurt, pounded as fiercely as his heart. His legs felt numb. _It must've been from jumping at such a height_, he thought. All Gustav knew was he needed rest. People were running and coming from all directions now; his side hurt from darting through the intersection where the red Volvo had hit him. At the current moment his right hand hurt from punching in the grill of the squealing-to-a-stop Chevy. _

_It had been coming for Rilien's unprotected head and he'd stopped it. Gustav staggered inside the open shop and set the waking scientist on his feet before lumbering into the shop. Soon they found the redhead, and when he heard Rilien fall over, and the sincerity of the concern in her voice he felt safe. It was all beginning, but it was all okay. _

Rilien, at last, felt like he was well enough to open his eyes. Feeling very drained but empowered by letting the fright and stressful memory out Rilien felt safe enough to look around. No lights were on, as he figured, but fuzzy faces were gradually becoming clear. Maeleyn, one of them was Maeleyn! Dizziness swept over him when he opened his mouth to speak but he saw the raw emotion-compassion and concern-in her eyes before he felt her large, cold finger touch his lips.

She was alright. She'd lived all this time. He'd done his job, and if God decided it he could die right now perfectly happy. But where was Kier? That part bothered him.

"Don't talk, uncle Rilien. You're okay. Look, I met some others. There like me…but not made by the Foot. They were created by an alien concoction, believe it or not." one by one new faces circled him until it was an odd halo of green shades.

He was so tired. He wanted to close his eyes, but he felt at peace. Sort of like the last dying breath where that final peace brought on by knowing he would join God settled deep in his bones. But he was very much alive, and getting healthy."This is Mikey, the youngest one-they're all older than me by the way, by a year-and this one here is Leonardo. Raphael's over here-"

"Her boyfriend!" piped up the one identified as Michelangelo which made Rilien smile a bit.

"Shut up." And this is Splinter, their dad. Yes, he's a rat you're not hallucinating. Last but not least Donatello."

"I made the IV drip with April, who's over there. You're recovering nicely but it may take about a month if not longer for your body to recover chemically from the deprivation you've suffered."

"Isn't he brilliant? And he's been home schooled!" anything to see Rilien smile. She wanted to make him feel as safe and happy as possible. It was almost like survivors guilt; she'd gotten out so much earlier than he. Now he was free and barely alive, slowly getting better. That was just like seeing him die before her eyes.

"Hi, I'm April." although already introduced she leaned over to greet him again. "Do you remember me? I caught you in the shop when you fell." Rilien blinked to acknowledge her. She pulled back slightly, laying her cream-colored hand on a tan male nearly as large as Gustav, or so he likened the muscle mass. "And this is Casey."

"Sorry about the bump on your head. The big dude scared me over there." now that he said that Rilien could feel his head hurting. He must've been dropped after they found Gustav, and the finger he was pointing south of him must be where he lay. Rilien couldn't lift his head.

"You just get well, uncle Rilien. We're here to protect you." He really did feel safe, and at last he felt like he could sleep without knocking himself out (by accident or intentionally) or by passing out.

"Maybe now he can tell us about his e-mail," the orange bandanna turtle piped up. Rilien wanted desperately to tell him about the docks but he felt too dizzy to talk, too sick.

"No, Mikey," the Donatello fellow counteracted for Rilien, "he's still too weak. Best I could do is rig a temporary speech system up for him. And even with that he might be too emotionally distressed to be of any help. It'd probably be best if we left him alone to heal and tried to research it on our own for now."

"Hush you two. He's worrying again. You just relax, uncle Rilien." Maeleyn propped up his motionless feet across her lap and ran a single finger across the crease lines in his forehead his expressions had made over the years. "Everything's fine." it was like role reversal. She was taking care of him instead of all the years he helped her father take care of her. "Everything's okay now."

"Dude's out again."

"Quit staring at him, Mikey. Get out of his space, he's recovering."

"Do you think he's needs modification to the drip speed or the nutrient formula, Don?" April asked curiously.

"Right now…um…" he clicked through the multiple screens of live feed to observe the vitals of the human basically a breathing part of the couch. "No. Definitely not," Don concluded firmly. "He's too weak. There's slight swelling in his stomach from malnutrition but he's getting better hydration than what he was. In about three weeks or so he can tackle solid food, in about two weeks or maybe one depending on his enzymes and stomach response to the liquid stream he could tackle pudding."

"So what did the starvation do to him, exactly?" Mikey asked curiously. He saw starving kids on infomercials all the time but Rilien in a place with food now, so why couldn't he eat it? It made no sense to the little brother. Don turned to him, thinking of how to phrase what was happening to the man.

"When someone like Rilien, who was once healthy, undergoes extreme cut backs on his natural carb intake-which is higher for males than females by at least five hundred calories just so you know-the body can react in a myriad of ways. He could've gone into shock, experienced more blackouts than what he probably has, his stomach could've attempted to eat itself if unchecked, or his stomach could've split at the swelling if his organs didn't shut down from lack of support found in the nutrients food gives us."

"Dude…"

"And he's been fed something or else he'd be dead, if not close to it. The amount just wasn't enough to keep him constantly sustained."

"So Shredder would have some form of control over him?" Leo inquired. Donatello nodded to confirm his suspicion. Now they knew why he couldn't have broken out by himself; he was coerced into a state that made it impossible.

"Now all that's left to do is let him recover and figure out this 'Otis Redding' mystery. Mikey, you ever find anything?" the question was days old but after the new drama occurred it had easily slipped all of their minds. The little brother nodded.

"The only song title was "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay"."

"So we start there." Leo decided for them all.

"After he gets better. We'll just be chasing our tails if we don't have anything to go on. And with Gustav and Rilien on the news someone will be snooping around for them."

"And to anyone lookin' for them four turtles will-"

"_Five _turtles." Maeleyn interjected as she folded her arms across her chest. Raph gave a twitching smirk. So she really wasn't confused about her identity anymore? She really saw herself as a turtle? That eased his small fears on her wanting to go back to a human.

"-we'd look good. Let poindexter get better and by then people will probably forget about them."

"Unlikely." Donatello countered, ignoring Raphael's hot glaring look.

"It's the best we have." Leo tried to appease both brothers, but to little avail.

* * *

"-but I love you!"

"It's sick, Rose! You're just experiencing some sort of emotional stress at seeing me again. Our family hasn't been whole for a long time."

"No, Chap, I really do love you."

"And I love you too, as a _sister_."

"Please…please don't say that. Chaplin, you just don't understand! I _love _you."

"You're sick, go lie down. Go do your job before Saki decides to off you for real."

"I'm sick? _I'm_ sick?" Rose cried out incredulously. Was this for real? She'd just poured her heart out on her sleeve, exploded and oozed the feelings she'd been hiding for a little over ten years and he says she's _sick_? Sure she knew logically these feelings were immoral but somewhere in her, somewhere in the little girl that looked to her big brother, she thought he'd understand. Wasn't that what siblings were for?

There to understand everything they were afraid to tell their parents, or that they didn't think they would understand. Why wasn't he understanding? "If I didn't love you why did I bandage up your arm, why am I not repulsed by what that ignorant man has made you?"

"Because you're _worried_." Chaplin tried to stress. Where the hell was this coming from? Why now? Maybe the pressure of being submerged in the Foot, under restrictions she hadn't faced in a while was making her mad. It was the only way he could explain it logically. Really, truly Chaplin didn't want to believe this had a simple, illogical answer: that she really did love him.

_She can't_, he thought, _she just can't. I love Karai. I most definitely don't love her. I can't live with the fact my sister might be crazy. I just can't. _She was his last kin. Rose couldn't be defective! Then Chaplin would have no one to fall on. Karai had yet to return any feelings for him and to be alone was his biggest fear - not the Shredder, not dying, not mutants or aliens, being alone. "If I didn't love you, Chaplin, why do I have this?" Rose pulled a remote from her pocket about the size of an unfolded wallet and Chaplin just stared. What w_as _that?

It looked like some sort of…

"It's a detonator, Chaplin."

"What does it go to?" he was afraid to ask.

"This." she motioned to the room around her. "All of this. I can kill him, Chaplin. Bishop wants him out of the picture so he can rightly rescue those experiments!"

"Rightly rescue them?" Bishop couldn't believe his ears! What was she infected by some sort of Bishop-inspired brainwash mode of intelligence? He was not helping these ex-humans. He was using them just as the Shredder was.

"Yes," Rose was near crying again. "He wants to help them. Bishop wants to help humanity by using these people to make sure newer generations survive. That _we _survive, Chaplin."

"Rose…this is going to sound really mean…" Chaplin whispered pushing her away at last with the metal hand Stockman had affixed to his stub. "But if Bishop wants to sustain the newer generations, to make them durable I don't want to be a part of it. I don't want to live around the last person in my family if she'd delusional."

"I'm not delusional, Chap! I love you." Rose seized his face and kissed his lips with the hunger and ardor she'd withheld for years. He scowled, pushing her away and spat. That vile taste was in his mouth, the taste of her tongue disgusted him. She was tainted, and trying to poison him with her ideas and actions. Something in him snapped, and he lashed out the only way he could when words wouldn't work with her: physically.

Surprisingly Rose didn't recoil, but the tears fell faster. Chaplin really didn't want her. That kiss could've swayed any other man but him. By now Rose would've hoped he'd gotten the message over the years. Every boyfriend he'd ever met of hers had something similar to him.

Interests in science were a common trait but some had his hair color, other his eyes, and a few the shape of his face with the dominant and heroic out jutting chin smooth and hard. He couldn't _do_ this to her! "I'll give you one last chance, Chap. I'll _prove _that I love you."

"Don't bother." hissed her brother as he rubbed his one normal hand, the one that stung from the impact. "Get her out of here. She has work to do." Rose broke down and cried in the strong grip of her escorts at the utter cold look she collapsed under. His eyes had no light anymore, no sincere love. She should've just kept her mouth shut and he'd still accept her hugs. Rose had moved too fast. He'd been jittery all day after waking up next to her in his little bed.

She'd claimed to be checking his vitals and staying close at hand since he didn't have a call button but he thought otherwise. To check his vitals she needn't be trying to get into his pants; his pulse was in his neck. It was a very fast turnaround of opinion for him. That killed her. Rose didn't care what happened now. She could kill herself…

_Or…_the thought hit her as she literally collided with the cool linoleum floor of her room. _I can kill someone else._ Bishop would always take her back. She knew he had a plan to help Shredder to the turtles and their recently adopted misfits. He would betray him, of course, and gather them all mercilessly at Area Fifty-One for the picking. There Slash was; he would impregnate Maeleyn before all of them. Her sights were instantly turned to Karai.

If all resistance, hope, was stolen from Chaplin he'd have no one to fall onto _but _her. To take down the daughter of her oppressor she might have to take down the whole damn building but that was okay. As long as Chaplin was safe. Yes. Instead of being played by Bishop so cruelly (what, giving him years of her life for one now-spoiled chance to see her brother; having to give up what she thought as her innocence to an animal in order to help him) she would now play him. Why, he probably wouldn't figure it out until it was too late but she had manufactured murder, and all her markers were set.

When, not if, the detonator was triggered, the people she'd marked would all die. Sweet cyanide…

Pit the sides against each other like they wanted to already. Exacerbate them. She would use Bishop to weaken Saki and break Chaplin out before blowing the whole damn place. The experiments were already safe. All that mattered was the winner, and that would be her. She had a month to act like this ordeal was nothing before giving him no other option _but _to be with her. For now she would try to tap a nerve in Chaplin by flirting with Stockman, gaining access to his secret cyborg plans.

It would all come together. When she wasn't keeping herself busy Rose was adding detail and sorting out the drama on scratch paper to keep her nerves and help keep her idea bulletproof. At the moment she had this much: Kier was acting as a double agent between Bishop and the Shredder (who he was with now wasn't confirmed). Bishop wanted to arrest Shredder who was actually a fugitive alien; Shredder wanted to kill Bishop because he was the one big thing standing between him and an alien assuming gradual control over human society in Manhattan (the other being the turtles). Both men had Rilien Specter's blood project.

Bishop was currently playing Kier and Shredder, and possibly the turtles and Stockman. Stockman wanted to off the Shredder just like Bishop and the turtles. Shredder had recently defaced Chaplin who she noted as her lover. Karai was just a 'die bitch' marker on the map. Gustav was nowhere on the map. Bishop and Shredder were two separate lines on the paper, both detailed with what she knew. Her line was nearly blank.

Detonator, she wrote. She had that much. Rose could rewire it to practically anything. In the big picture her goal was the building but, she realized, one detonator couldn't topple a whole building. So who to target?

Karai could defend herself too well, despite her animal-esk instinct to make her top priority, the same with Shredder. Stockman was on her side so she wasn't going there. She loved Chaplin so he was out. Then it hit her. Make both sides angry; attack the middleman!

Kill Kier Specter. That would rattle the turtles, his daughter, Rilien, and Bishop who had used him as a mole, _plus _the Shredder because Kier was the one that had 'found' Gustav. Gustav was the Shredder's only hope of any successful mutant army developing.

* * *

After the early morning of Bishop essentially scaring all of the occupants of the O'Neil home Bishop had returned to Area Fifty-One, telling them to 'stay in touch'. He had planning of his own to do, and last minute touch ups. His military crew continued to build up reinforcements to Slash's habitat. Bishop, for the most part, watched. He'd comb the news every now and then to see how quickly the animal instance was being covered up.

_How long do I have before one of them figures the video was spliced and edited? _he wondered. In truth he'd only cut out a few sentences but they were important ones. Mostly the outtakes were sentences naming an alliance with Bishop to make them all feel backed into a corner and the outright hint of a second animal lab right there in Manhattan, claiming the old one to be Area Fifty-One where the group would be in a little over a month if the Shredder came through on his threats. Their plan was to back the turtles into a corner, run them around until they were so frazzled that they wanted to run into his arms at Area Fifty-One. Of course, on the first scan April's apartment would be bare and they would be at Area Fifty-One, then transported back as soon as they got word he was coming to the base.

In the middle of Manhattan, he decided, or on top of the Shredder's own building they would have their faceoff. He would get nothing out of this but an arrest. Maeleyn would be his and her fetus would go to his research. Slash would be used as a shield and a weapon on Maeleyn and his behalf, a soldier. The turtles would be his advocates and Ch'rell would die.

If the building _happened _to collapse during the fight then that's what happened. He'd given Rose the tools to help weaken the facility from the inside. Now…if he could just curb her jealousy against Karai he'd say this was foolproof. Women, however, were an undeterminable factor in everything. He walked calmly by Slash's cage, and like the less-than-intelligent creation always did, he knocked. It was just him wanting to talk to someone, to know people were there for him. He asked the same question every day.

"Slash get bride soon?"

"Soon. Yes, soon."

"Slash take collar off too?"

"Collar?" Bishop stopped short. "What collar?" he'd never asked anything but the bride question before.

"Pretty blonde lady make collar for slash. Collar name Slash."

"That bitch!" he hissed, watching the turtle turn around so he could see the collar made to fit his thick tail (because no one would think to check his tail, and it could be taken off easier than anything on his physical body due to mass). She had the audacity to put a digital description on it, and the message slowly scrolled for him to read it.

_Cyanide. One of three. Now who has the control?_

* * *

Pulling away from the door Kier scowled. So that was Bishop's plan, hm? When was that bastard ever going to tell _him _the truth? And here he was still working for him! "Not anymore…" breathed Kier as he slipped away from the door and ran out of Area Fifty-One as fast as he could be carried.

Serving under Bishop had given him an 'all access pass' to some sophisticated, secret governmental equipment and he was definitely going to use it. He took a personal helicopter and let the machine float high into the air before pointing it towards New York. If Bishop was going to try and corral his daughter and her friends into the lion's den he was going to be a barrier in between them. He didn't care who's attention he caught. Kier was done being a mole, running from side to side.

Now he was making his own side. He knew enough to do something good! "Alright you sick fuck. You took me out of the navy, out of my training it's time to show you what I've learned." Kier stared hard out the windshield of the aircraft and tightened his grip on the controls. Spector's had always been known for their rage. Kier Spector specifically had been known for his accuracy in battle. First thing's first, get a message to a secure line.

Ages ago when Rilien had first sent him an e-mail the ship automatically cataloged the IP address of the computer. From there, if he called in a few favors, he could get Rilien's old website address and take it to one of the _Eagleton_ ship nerds to get the hidden IP address off anyone who'd accessed the page other than his brother. Undoubtedly anyone else who's IP address showed up on that list was as smart as Rilien. They could help him plan his commando mission to a better degree. All he could do now was focus on his hateful thoughts and the brewing ideas he had to take one of the sides down.

Specter wasn't sure which side to take out until now. Bishop would _die_. "You fuck with my family," he hissed, squeezing the main control so tight the veins in his hand turned tomato red and showed up like black scars on his hands under the thinly stretched, "I fuck you up and you don't come back."


	14. Chapter 14

Enigma

**AN: No long authoress note like last time, and no reviews to the new chapter but the traffic page indicated interest still so I'm updating. My friend helped me work out some kinks for Jezebelle's upcoming story **_Nirvana _**so I'm pretty excited about the sequel but I'll take my time with this first :). Thanks for all the lovely reviews thus far, I can't believe I got to this point :D. I'm so stoked! For this chapter and any future chapters where Rilien is recovering his speech via the computer system will be in bold.**

Splinter gave a close-mouthed grin; Maeleyn looked to be oozing of confidence and utter girlish glee since finding her uncle. The lair had literally gone from a calm, quiet peace with her presence to a bubbling, sunshine-infested craze of enthusiasm. Donatello often noted it as suspicion to check her for being bi polar but even the joking genius knew it came from that one big weight off her shoulders. Her kin was safe and recovering; well, one of them was anyways. Donnie and Raph had moved Rilien out of the O'Neil pad and to the lair about four days ago, and since then Don's machine he'd made to read Rilien's eye movements and translate them into words had been in effect for a week.

So Rilien Spector had been recuperating on liquid IVs for about a week and a half now, and he was slowly getting better – Donatello's original assumption stretched from a month to about a month and a half for full and complete, functioning recovery.

It seemed like now more than ever time flew, and things were happily hectic. Maeleyn's bruises had become insignificant in light of her upbeat personality and she'd jumped back into training with zeal to rival Michelangelo's. Don had 'okayed' Maeleyn for strenuous physical activity three days ago so she was fiercer than ever when finally getting back into the full swing of things. The gentle swinging motions similar to Splinter's tai chi movements were finally put into action as he granted her full permission to use her kama at the ceremony four days ago. She was officially a Hamato with her own bandanna which she wore with pride.

_After doing one last check on Rilien around midnight Maeleyn noticed the boys weren't going out to patrol like they usually would. Given the recent activity she didn't blame them. Gustav was staying at April and Casey's, her father had yet to communicate anyone, and all kinds of conspiracy theories were shooting from the woodworks now that the news went more to interviews and opinions on the animal that had been seen about four days ago. It was Rilien's first night in the lair and she wanted to make sure he was attended to with the respect and care of a pharaoh._

_She knew it would get moist near nighttime so she and Don had wrapped him like an infant in a cocoon of blankets to ward off the chill. Should he get night sweats or chills it could send him into a fever state and might kill him, so they were extremely careful and attentive to detail. The lair was oddly quiet; well…it was quiet when they went out on patrol but it was _too _quiet for them to not be on patrol. Leonardo appeared silently outside the closed dojo door where a softly flickering orange color gently warmed the material of the door, startling her._

_Maeleyn hadn't gotten the whole 'move with silence' thing down yet. He was a startling composition of celery green, blue, and brown against the rice paper door and surrounding brick wall of the underground home. "Sensei wishes to see you," he said, bowing in the traditional actions of a feudal era messenger with his hands mashed together in a prayer-like position before him. The instant he said that Maeleyn sensed a serious but soft tone owing to the reason the family was quiet tonight. Something was going on…_

_Swiftly she thought, narrowing down the possibilities of what could warrant such behavior from usually rambunctious, chaotic brothers. Either it was a huge moment of reflection maybe, say, how far they've all come, he was dying, they were observing some sort of ninja-related tradition thing, or Shredder was closing in on them all and they would die horribly very soon. She eased her way into the room, squeezing through the small space in the door Leo had left open. It was unnerving and comforting to see their familiar faces tinged in the soft, flickering glow coming from the evenly spaced ring of candles centered and starting from Splinter's pillow going in between the two brothers to either side of their father. Each brother had their own pillow-mat to sit on and Maeleyn thought they were cute, the color matched their bandanas._

"_Kneel, my daughter." Splinter calling her that was still a little odd but she was getting used to it. Maeleyn found it easier to accept if she imagined the word in her father's voice. When she first started learning how to meditate Splinter gave her a small history on Japan and the various sitting positions students would observe while learning the art. Whenever he told her to kneel he generally meant the 'seiza' position which was simply sitting back on her knees to the point where her butt touched the heels of her feet. "Tonight you truly join the ranks of the ninja among your brothers, your fellow students…" he gestured around with a paw to Leonardo and Raphael on his left and to Don and Mikey on his right._

"_I, Hamato, Splinter, head of the Hamato clan, grant you entrance into the family. You have shown through advancements in strength, skill, will, and attention to practice that you are worthy of our home. As a master, mentor, and father to your peers I now give you your defining symbol as a kunoichi: your bandanna." he strained the material of the bandana through his fingers like he had when she'd first seen it._

_Her heart raced, just like it did when she first saw it. This was it - her defining moment! Aside from April (who may or may not have gotten a bandana, she didn't know) she was the first Hamato female in what they now referred to as the clan. "I have chosen for you the color grey. It is a sharp, metallic color that brings energy into yourself and others, and it reflects brilliance all that may attempt to oppose it. Grey is a color of resilience and matches both your personality and actions." he held the bandana horizontal in his furry hands for her to see the eyeholes he had made for her. _

_She held up her hair as Splinter gently pulled the material close against her face before moving behind her to tie the signature knot that would keep it to her face. He stepped back, and she listened to the sound of his furry feet against the dojo floor. Maeleyn let her hair fall and slowly turned to look at Splinter. "Among your fellow students, your brothers, I accept you this night as Maeleyn Hamato. By no other name will you be known to your kin. From this night on you will always be a Hamato." Maeleyn ran her hand down the soft cloth material of the bandanna tail that tried to hide in her hair and looked down at the floor in a trance-like spell._

_This felt…nice. Natural. This felt like _her_._

"_Rise, my daughter. Stand with your brothers."_

_Immediately they were full of life again. Leonardo gave her a calm, quiet and respectful handshake. He was a mother hen type, but quiet about his worry until the self-pressure he forced on himself was too much to keep quiet. Raphael-what with their relationship-didn't make a show but nudged her affectionately with his elbow; his eyes were a live fire oozing of pride, joy, respect, and slightly concealed love. Mikey was the most enthusiastic of them all._

"_You're family now, dudette. That means you're open to any and all Mikey-inspired pranks. And it means any kids that happen to come in the family will be pure Hamato. Don't worry about incest though you're only a Hamato in the sense of being a ninja. Let's face it, being our sister and then liking Raph would just be so-OW!"_

"_Shut yer mouth, nitwit. Can't you at least try to control yourself? You know Master Splinter likes these kind of ceremonies." Raph scowled at him, not even caring that his fist pulsed from giving Mikey a nice knot in the back of the head. Don gave a small half-smile._

"_They don't happen a lot," Don defended Raphael's point. "Welcome to the family, Maeleyn."_

"_Yes," Leo smiled, giving the squabbling Raph and Mikey a pointed look that diffused their rowdy behavior in light of the important ceremony. "Welcome to our family."_

"_Thanks guys…"_

"Sweet! Who's the kame with the kamas? I am!" Maeleyn had figured out how to make her own puns with the weapons she'd learned about a half a month ago to be kamas (and not 'mini death sticks' as she so liked to call them). It had been a part of her gentle rehabilitation to learn Japanese weaponry history, philosophy, and how to truly learn a kata the slow and gentle way. She was decent and certainly improving, as that happened to be the only kind of progress she could logically make. Splinter was emphasizing heavily on defense as they mounted closer and closer to what Gustav constantly predicted to be 'the war, the end' because it was just smarter in the rat's eyes. His sons had nineteen years of offensive and defensive training; it was best to teach her how to defend herself before learning how to effectively attack.

He tried to teach them equally to her but at the current time his intuition was stressing defensive training, and so he was verbalizing that. In three weeks her third month of training would be upon her, and that made the rat smile. How far she'd come…and seeing her learn to fit into the family was most amusing to the elder rat - much like watching a soap opera he could live in.

Like a butterfly emerging out of a cocoon he'd watched Maeleyn transition from a scared, tired thing to a self-empowered young lady. Likewise he'd seen his sons adapt to her in a different way characteristic of each of them. At the start of meeting her Leonardo was defensive, cautious, slightly mistrusting, and a bit agitated by her extrovert, stubborn personality. Overall, however, he felt the traditional lead hero-evident empathy for her 'damsel in distress' situation. Gradually he learned to see her not as some potential, lying secret Foot operative and viewed her more as a nice, opinionated, double-edged sword (some days on his side, others on Raphael's).

Donatello had his own form of suspicion but overall Maeleyn's condition and background had called to his inner doctor, the inner thinker, Splinter saw. He was mostly concerned with her condition as he mulled over the puzzle of 'what would the DNA do to her since she was human in the beginning?'. She became less of an experiment, a curiosity, and more of a person after seeing how alike to his brothers she was in her typical reactions and mannerisms. Michelangelo, bless his most empathetic son, had accepted her immediately with the enthusiasm he had April O'Neil when he asked Splinter if they could keep the human.

Within reason Mikey loved everything he came across. Generally creative, hyper, fast, and childish Mikey took to Maeleyn with the aim of a regular teenage boy trying to court a teenage girl. Once he realized she didn't want him in the way he sought to win her he easily switched to the 'best friend' and assumed his cheery role of invigorating everyone (or annoying everyone, as Raphael put it) to become a close friend. Probably in Mikey's mind unknowingly getting noted as a little sibling to the orange-wearing turtle. Raphael was quite the puzzle to his father, but Splinter could somewhat see the path his usually hotheaded, emotional son had taken.

Raphael immediately saw her as an adversary for her quick wit and unrelenting resistance to his need to dominate and be the aggressor. She pushed him back with just as much force as he did her, undoubtedly flipping the rage switch in his brain and activating the primal need to show how capable he was. In this, Splinter thought, was a way for Raphael to channel his anger he and his other sons couldn't usually trigger. This made her both a compliment to his son and a bother.

After seeing her attitude wouldn't bend to his actions Raphael had backed off and thought fiercely as he would when trying to help Leo think of what their adversaries would be trying to put against them. Then, at some point (Splinter couldn't really gather when) he realized she was what he wanted. A sassy, tough mutant (Splinter tried to think in teenage lingo when figuring why his most emotional son would suddenly switch perspective). He was now coming to call her lover, and his rat nose could pick up the faintest blend of their scents. What did he think, then?, Splinter wondered.

Well…he knew his reaction to play father was automatic and second nature from raising his own boys. Maeleyn may be coarse and man-like more often than not but she had a good heart, good intentions. It bothered the rat that her father was consistently gone but he understood the importance as to why. He also felt disappointment that her family was being targeted for such nefarious wants of the Shredder but admired this girl for her drive and determination. She had the stubbornness of Raphael, a mind somewhat like Donatello, and-when not bored-Leonardo's devotion to bettering her physical skills.

She'd passed Splinter's 'mission' administered when entering the dojo and had successfully forced Mikey in a position where he was unable to lash out with his nunchucks. Of course his sons' skills were toned down to fit her current level but she had Raph's force when confronting her 'enemies' though she could stand to work on accuracy and strategy. She took the Raphael approach-charge straight in, which Splinter had often spoken against but it didn't seem to be helping.

"You may all break my students. We'll resume training again shortly after lunch." so she had about…four hours to herself, right? Or with Raph, you know, however that turned out. Maeleyn dabbed at her shoulders and sides with a towel; the training was getting increasingly difficult even though the Hamato boys were taking it easy on her. Her first want was to go to Rilien, which she did. Don had just finished changing out his IV bag and set him up a new one; her uncle's eyes looked back and forth making words that would be spoken when he was done moving.

**And what did you do? You got up early today. You never get up early.**

"Not until I met these guys. They have this one big rule where if you don't get up for ass-crack-of-the-early-morning-training you get a blanket trip to the sink for a spray down."

**Ha ha ha. Your father used to put me in the bath tub and turn on the shower, among other things. One thing that gets a Spector up is water.**

She sucked on the lower right portion of her lip. That automated sound was positively awful for her uncle. He sounded too robotic, too gone. Not at all like himself and the charismatic, loveable dork she remembered. _But he's healing_, she reminded herself, _and he'll be back to his old self soon_. "Are you okay? Do you want anything?"

**Strangely enough, I'm fine. I would like water though. Isn't that weird? To be on a liquid transfusion and to want liquid? Donatello and I were talking about this the other day. That boy makes my eyes tired but he's got a brilliant brain! Imagine if I had mentored him instead of Chaplin…we probably wouldn't be in this mess. You probably wouldn't look like, you know. Like you do now.**

"I'll get you some water, Rilien. Here…let me sit you up." she gently shifted him to a sitting position where he was propped up into the farthest right cushion of the couch so he could sit without falling over, a quarter of his weight put off on the arm. He could look down to the computer machine his eyes were being used to power and could feel a little more normal than what he appeared to be. "And you know…I don't dislike this body. I could do a lot more than when I was human. Sure I may way significantly more than what I did as a human but I'm more flexible and have some more strength behind me."

**I'm glad you could find something good to like about your new body. You still don't appear to be that heavy, especially when compared to the males. Your mutation and theirs is ironic when associated with the actual emididae species. Usually in the species females were bigger and males were smaller. That very reason alone is why two males would often try to team up and court one mate.**

"Well Raph doesn't respect our turtle heritage," Don had overheard the computer they'd kept turned up in case he had an emergency and needed immediate attention. He set the glass on the little table and leaned idly into the top of the soft couch cushions. "But he makes sure no one gangs up on Maeleyn."

**Gustav told me Raph was the one to tear up his arm that night. He's a true warrior. Maeleyn's father would be proud to meet him. To know she was…involved with him. I'm not sure what you two do Maeleyn but I believe 'involved' is a safe, generic word for you teenagers.**

Don snickered. "Uncle Rilien, please. We don't need to talk about my love life. And you especially, uncle Rilien. Whatever you think goes surround sound here." Maeleyn motioned to the lair around them. Rilien smiled, letting her assist him with the drinking glass. After he finished the water he was geared for a nap; Rilien often slept to aid his own recovery - sleep was vital.

"Uncle Rilien…before you go to sleep do you remember that e-mail you sent to Donnie? About the middle man, the mole, and Otis Redding?"

**Was that Donatello? How ironic. But yes, I remember it. Why?**

"We found that a song of his was called "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay". What were you getting at?"

**Manhattan pier. The boat would take them away and I don't know where it went. **

"Take who away?"

**The experiments. Chaplin was making doubles of all the numbers and shipping off the lasting ones.**

"What?" Don exclaimed, making Rilien jump. Other experiments had lasted besides Gustav? Why would the Foot be getting rid of them? Where were they going? Who wanted them? Rilien nodded.

**I sent it to my curious hacker in hopes someone would get the same red flag and investigate it.**

"Well, rest assured Mr. Spector we will." Leonardo had just finished meditating and out of OCD clean habit put up the abandoned glass Rilien had drained. "It bothers me the Foot had made so little activity since you're escape. They're planning something…something big." and it was true. The leader felt like he was walking on a tight rope made out of egg shells (if such a thing was possible) and in agony at the anticipation. His mind was reeling and he, himself, was disappointed that he couldn't see past the veil of confusion and think like his enemy.

Then again, the Shredder was no ordinary enemy.

"But as soon as you're better we'll be more than happy to help you investigate. In fact, we'd like it if you came with us. We've got two different paths we could go."

"By land or by sea," Don added for him. It would be smarter as turtles to maybe take the little submarine he'd created and investigate the water entrance just in case they needed some weaponry to let them in the door. Maybe they'd split up into teams (call in April and Casey) and hit both at the same time. "Question is," Don wondered aloud, "which is the smarter route to take?"

**The cage room has been covered and destroyed since they have no more animals to take care of. They're all dead or shipped out. Shredder has few employees since his…punishments have become so drastic. I believe land would be dangerous. Rumors of mutiny have been tossed around.**

"Mutiny?" Leo nearly cried in disbelief. Why mutiny was perfect! Such chaos would make for easy infiltration.

**It's not good mutiny, boy. We're talking dangerous science-based mutiny. Stockman has drawn up plans for some sort of cyborg suit. No one knows where it's hidden, or how he made it…even what he put on it, but it's definitely heavy material. Over eighteen patented inventions on it, or so Rose blabbed to Chaplin.**

"Wait…Rose? Rose Chaplin? As in the Rose that was suspected to be a dead zoo handler?"

**Yes. She's Chaplin's younger sister. Twice as crazy. She and that oriental woman don't like each other. Had a small cat fight in the hallway when I was coming to assist Chaplin with the loss of his hand. He was punished by the Shredder, you see. A hand cut off or something like that. I was denied access to his room but I saw the two on the way back to my room.**

"Karai? That had to be who you saw. You say she doesn't like this…Rose person?" Leo asked curiously. Karai often had a different mind than Saki on his methods of control but it was unusual for her to hate someone her father employed to the point of trying to kick their ass (if they weren't Hun).

**No. Apparently they both like Chaplin.**

"Bet'cha that doesn't make daddy Shredder happy." Raphael sat on the far side of the couch and crossed his arms, interested in what they could learn from what this man had to say. Rilien must be feeling better because his talking had increased significantly.

**Indeed. Well, I can't speak for that. I'm on the outside now. Free…**

"Alright guys. The question game is over. He's tired." Don noted the heavy slump of his eyelids and the way his body relaxed into the couch. Raph and Don eased him down to lie on the couch again. Leo put the blanket over him and turned on the small fan so he wouldn't feel too stuffy and start sweating.

"So…" Leo took his little brothers into the kitchen where Mikey had a comic tucked under one arm and was pulling a cold slice of pizza from the closest box. "Looks like things just got a little more complex."

"Yep," Don agreed. "But if we play our cards right we might be able to get someone else on our side."

"I am _not _working with Karai." Raphael immediately pointed almost accusingly at his two brothers and Mikey nearly choked on his pizza. What in the hell did he miss?

"We'll fill you in later, Mike." Donatello promised him. "For now I suggest we be quiet so Rilien can get some rest."

* * *

Kier figured out after a half hour of one-handed flight controlling the _Eagleton_ coordinates were in a live tracker built into the plane. Bishop must've kept a tab on the boat in case Kier died or initially refused him. A chance to come back and be recruited and pestered until he said yes. The boat looked to be almost towards Nova Scotia since starting out near Rhode Island and making a small loop before continuing to go along the east coastline. He'd get there, no matter what. What would be two or three days, maybe more, by boat would be an hour for him.

Near two in the afternoon he landed on the designated spot for the incoming medical assistance. They were instantly up in arms and on alert because he couldn't figure out how to turn on the communication system and they didn't know it was him piloting the foreign plane. He stepped down, hands in the air, and stated his position and name in the traditional loud navy style. Captain Gossner stomped out with the fierceness of a hunting tiger to assess what had his crew in such a tizzy.

A small bout of relief broke over him. "Admiral, state your business! Why have you returned? You were given strict orders to follow the direction of Agent Bishop!" Kier held up his hands in defense again, trying to ease the natural fierceness in the captain's voice.

"Captain, sir, I've come back to request help. During my undercover operation for Agent Bishop I've realized bigger, dangerous variables than one man can handle. The DNA experimentation is real and an inside mole of Agent Bishop's is actually sending them somewhere else. The 'Foot' premises is being loosely guarded and cleaned of all signs of experimentation."

"And what do you need us for, admiral?"

"My brother escaped, sir. I need to find him. Only our boys can hack into the mainframe of these peoples' computers. I believe whoever my brother was communicating with, or whatever computer he accessed last may have a clue as to where he went. We find my brother we have the potential to nip this in the bud before we experience a full out warfare that could sacrifice human dominance in the social, societal structure."

Five minutes of tense, quiet deliberation occurred. Kier could only stand blanch-faced and taut as he waited on the decision. "What are you standing here for, admiral? Get to the superstructure and have Kirkland and Jeeters find that computer."

"Thank you sir." Kier stepped swiftly to the superstructure where the resident nerds lay rewiring the radar system and going over the vitals of the ship. "Jeeters, Kirkland. Admiral Kier, remember me?"

"Yeah, Mr. Bigshot." joked Jeeters, a thirty-two year old brunette male with a Botox-tight face and twinkling brown eyes. "Left the _Eagleton _to go do an undercover mission."

"Yep," nodded Kirkland in agreement. "But we won't hold it against you." said the nearly polar-opposite Hawaiian with short-shaved black hair seeming to seed on his scalp with length again like some sort of chia pet. "What can we do for you, admiral?"

"On the terminal out there I got an e-mail almost three months ago from my brother. He recently escaped his captors and is somewhere in New York. I want to take this facility down so I need you two to find out where he sent that from and figure out how to strip that place of all security. I mean to the point where nothing comes up to stop an infiltration."

"Is that all?" inquired Kirkland, nearly in disbelief? "That's it? Too easy…" he tisked. Kier rolled his eyes. So vain, so confident.

"Not exactly, He sent a message to someone; I want to find them, too. They might know where he is."

Kier knew where the Foot headquarters were but he was simply too much of an underling to know how to take down the system from the inside. Hopefully Bishop would contact him soon and let him know when Stockman felt the itch to rebel. This whole 'wait a month thing' had been initiated oddly on both sides and would end in twenty-one days, so action need be swift. But then again, he didn't care about Bishop; he had his own angles and motives all along. Kier just cared about his daughter and his brother -nothing and no one else.

"We'll let you know as soon as we get something." Jeeters promised. Kirkland went to go log on to the terminal Kier swore to be at when he first got the e-mail from Rilien, the first one ever, and tackled the situation from there. Kier's phone buzzed. He looked to his phone, scowling. Bishop.

"Here," he scrawled down his phone number, unsure of if the nerds had it since he'd broken his last phone after coming back to Rhode Island when it slipped out of his grilling apron pocket and became a two-toned mess closely related to well done. "You find anything you call me." demanded the man as he swiftly exited the superstructure and passed the captain.

**Found your daughter**, the text read, **come see me to get the coordinates, but you'll have to earn them.**

Kier scowled. Of course Bishop would make him work for it. He was probably biding his time to the end of the month when Stockman's suit would be ready (if it wasn't already ready) and Rilien was suspected to be in decent repair. What would be so important, he wondered, that Bishop would call him in so suddenly? Not worrying about why, striving to get closer to his family that was so close now it nearly drove him insane, Kier ignored all questions and commands to stop as he pulled the plane off the landing zone and took off back towards Manhattan.

_I'm coming baby, don't you worry. Daddy's coming home._

* * *

Bishop snapped his phone shut and scowled at Slash who'd quit trying to chase his tail ten minutes ago. This dumb mutant had tried to remove this thing any way he knew how. Only three or four ways had been tried, given the fact he wasn't made for intelligence but just for endurance and his sperm. All of them had failed, and the cyanide collar stared Bishop in the face every time the creature turned around.

It _mocked _him, oh how it mocked him! That bitch had one-upped him and had been hiding her intentions this whole time. Bishop was getting readable, he feared. Or maybe by now Bishop had a predictable personality and people he'd previously bartered with in other galaxies were spreading the word any way they knew how. Either way, Rose Chaplin was putting him in a tight spot. Good thing he still had Kier.

Chaplin was still in play too, but mostly traumatized, brooding and angry at the loss of his hand. And apparently his own sister had tried to romance him which put the double agent in a poor state of mind for puppeteering at the moment. So Spector was the only one he had left, huh? It was ironic…he'd be using a Spector to capture a different Spector and force her to be in his animal hybrid plans to enhance the human race, and this whole thing started because of the nerdiest Spector. That family was too harmful to itself, which made it a beautiful thing.

Sort of like an alien race that put itself into extinction. He never lost sight of his goal through this whole mad play worthy of Shakespeare or prime time TV. Shredder would fall and it would be sweet. When he looked at the clock on his phone after the fifth irritated open-shut flip falling in rhythm with the others he found the time to be three fifteen. Kier stumbled into the room at three twenty after locating Bishop's position.

"What do you want now, Bishop?"

"Why Kier, what makes you so sour?" despite the vile glare given to him Bishop just smiled coolly. He expected such a reaction.

"I kind of expected my daughter back by now, if you must know." he hissed tersely to his technically employer. Bishop gave a small shrug and picked fake lint from the lining in his suit.

"Things happen, Mr. Spector. Important, undetermined factors came up and I need you to smooth them over or you daughter and your brother are at extreme risk." _risk of you_, Kier thought bitterly as he locked his out-jutted jaw and clenched his fists. What he wouldn't give to deck this son of a bitch. The audacity of this man to flat out lie just to get what he wanted; he'd probably 'smoothed over' a lot of untrue shit throughout his life and killed innocents just to get meager gains. Anything was meager in comparison to human lives, but apparently Bishop didn't care as long as he still had his. It made him sick, but soon he could probably nix Bishop and get his family back.

_Bide your time Kier,_ he told himself, forcing calm upon his body and mind. _You'll get the best of him yet but you have to wait. Be patient. It's for your little girl. For Rilien…_

"Alright," he sighed, "what do I have to do?"

"It's come to my attention that Rose Chaplin has now become a wild card."

"She's an 'important, undetermined factor' I take it?" need he ask? Bishop wouldn't have made the statement if it wasn't pertinent.

"Yes, Mr. Spector, she has. Observe our friend here…" he motioned for Slash to turn around and the large turtle did so. Kier's eyes widened. Cyanide? This crazy bitch had formulated cyanide? Shit!

"One of three?" Kier cited the digital scrolling message. "Where are the other two?"

"I don't know, Mr. Spector. I'd like you to infiltrate the Foot, find and destroy the last two if they are indeed on the vicinity. If she's got poison collars she has a means of triggering them."

"A detonator." he was always taught never to assume but some things were just common knowledge. Bishop nodded.

"And if she had a detonator she's in a prime place to remake it into something very lethal." Bishop pointed out. Harsher horrors jumped to the navy man's mind. Airborne warfare, explosions, bombs…

Good god…

"When do you want me back on base?"

"In about three or four days. We'll need to make up a believable story as to why you disappeared and make it look authentic."

"So you're saying I'll need the shit beat out of me to go back on base and undercover."

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Spector."

"And who's going to-oof!" did he just get punched with a _metal fist_? Kier fell back by the sheer force in which Bishop got him with a right hook. It wouldn't surprise him if Bishop was some sort of robot. After all…he was a crackpot that dealt with aliens and other sci-fi shit like that. Being metallic or definitely non-human would explain why he never got over emotional, or even sweaty.

Come to think of it Kier had never seen this man bleed. Blood dribbled out of Kier's nose and connected to the flow oozing out of the right side of his mouth. Definitely a busted lip. He stood shakily. No one ever said this job was going to be easy. Bishop gave him a right-handed upper cut following a left hook. _For my family…_Kier kept thinking, _for my family._

Mortal men, no matter how much combat training, couldn't stand up to a metal skeleton, which was all Bishop truly was. He looked at the bloodied and beaten man lying on his floor. His nose wasn't broken but definitely swollen from impact. One eye was black and swollen shut, his jaw bones were very fragile, as most of the blows targeted his face. Bishop made sure for interrogation reasons his jaw could function properly, but he looked to be like a badly shaded picture with large bruises around his cheekbones.

"What's that, Mr. Spector?" he asked the unconscious man, calling the secure line he'd given to Rose since she was a previous employee of his. "You found your brother? And you think he was beaten up by the turtles? I'll be sure to let Ms. Chaplin know. You've been such a great help…"

* * *

"What do _you_ want?" Rose snapped into the secure line of her lavish room where the medical files of all the experiments and employees were stowed. As of right now, with Chaplin being a little out of sorts with the loss of his hand Rose had been upgraded and nearly attained 'pet' status. She was being showered with gifts, praise, and private access usually only Karai had. Of course this made the chinky-eyed bitch (as Rose liked to call her) absolutely furious. Bishop had the nerve to call her. Bishop!

"You want to get into good sorts with your master right? Your brother?" damn if he didn't know how to play her. Briefly Rose wondered how long Bishop had known about her sexual orientation and the feelings for her brother.

"Sure…" said the blonde scientist slowly, her pretty eyes narrowed. What was he trying to pull?

"Well, why don't you deliver a message for me?"

"Why the hell should I?"

"The Shredder will be happy to know Kier is back. He was beaten badly by some adversaries. Apparently he was jumped. He never saw them coming. Spector believes it was four large green animals. You know what that means?"

"That son of a bitch knows where the turtles are."

"Don't you think? I mean, they did attack him. He must've found something."

"His daughter?" Rose was getting excited, forgetting to keep in mind Bishop could be feeding her just to see how the Shredder would react.

"Or…" Bishop paused to goad her to an even bigger answer. Her eyes lit up. Jackpot, double jeopardy!

"Rilien and the escaped turtle? My god! What's Rilien's condition?"

"Not sure. He wouldn't talk."

"I see…well, how's he going to get here?"

"I'll let him heal and then get him over there. You just make sure he talks."

"Affirmative. I'll let the Foot know immediately. If he won't come to us when he's better we'll get him ourselves."

"Good." the grim, devilish smile glossed Bishop's lips and he smiled to his ex-associate. "Have a nice day, Ms. Chaplin." she cut the communication and clapped ecstatically like a school girl. _Redemption here I come! _Shredder would be happy to know his turtle nemeses had been found, that the escaped project had been found, and to know Rilien was alive. Then Chaplin would be happy the Shredder was happy because when the Shredder was happy everyone's lives were easier.

"You there," steps from her room were patrolling Foot soldiers making sure no one thought of trying to infiltrate the loosely guarded compound. So many of their men had died since the Shredder, and even Stockman, thought it wise to beef up their arsenal with soldier animal hybrids. Followers of the Shredder and the Foot ways died in droves. They saluted her, drawing close.

"Tell the Shredder to prepare for an interrogation in about four days. Runaway Kier Spector's been spotted again and my sources say he's located the turtles and his missing brother."


	15. Chapter 15

Enigma

**AN: It's raining at my house…the sound is so lovely. Almost ideal to write in if I didn't have a rain-induced pressure headache. The monumental chapter fifteen! Still stoked to have even made it pass ten! Thank you all. Hope any Fanfiction page problems have been resolved for you all; I had some myself when browsing other fictions and trying to leave reviews.**

**The story is closing soon, I hope you're all ready to say goodbye to a character or two. Don't worry, Jezebelle will have our friendly faces returning soon. Hopefully **_Nirvana _**will have as many if not more reviews than **_Enigma_**. No reviews so no readers to mention but that doesn't mean I can't thank the ones that have reviewed previously! So a big thank you to: **FeatherGirl13**, **Backseat Writer**, (the mysterious and yet to be fully, properly identified) **Al**, **Candlelit1**, **Writestyle**, and **Hyperactive kitty**!**

"Hello? April? Is everything okay with Gustav?" after Donatello had seen the number on their caller ID he ultimately assumed Gustav had taken a turn for the worst. And, an even bigger assumption was that it was _her _calling. While the history between the turtles, April, Casey, and any real friends they'd had easily led the most intelligent turtle to believe everything was as it should be; the naïve notion was quickly shot down. The last fiber of hope for normalcy had instantly dissolved, and his notion fell apart, unfounded. "April?" Donnie asked tentatively into the phone; his grip tightening until the knuckles of his three green fingers turned a whitish olive from constriction.

"_Greetings Donatello. Ms. O'Neil and Mr. Jones have been removed from the premises for their own safety. Have a nice day, Donatello."_

"What? No! Bishop! _Bishop_!" shouting into the phone did nothing to call the elusive agent back to the phone. His wild shouting most certainly didn't end the dial tone, even though it blocked it out until he had to catch his breath. The family was instantly up in arms, as it wasn't like either of the younger brothers, Donatello especially, to yell in such a tone. Donnie began to shake, unsure of what to make of the situation. Had Bishop kidnapped them? Did he kill Gustav? What was his motive?

Raphael's Shell Cell rang shortly after Mikey pried the only working landline from Donnie's clenched hand. "April? Casey? Come on guys, somebody talk to me." Raphael began to pace like an agitated animal. That was his coping mechanism: busying himself. Maeleyn was antsy, and wondering what she should do. No one had made a move yet but they were all tense, ready to go.

"_Raph? Raph? Can you hear me? Please, come with us! We have to go to Area Fifty-One. Bishop said Shredder's not holding out any longer. He's not giving Rilien any more recovery time…please, I don't want to think I'm losing you guys again. Come with us, all of you! We can be safe!"_

"_You governmental shits, get your hands off my fiancée! Ey, Raph, man you still there?"_

"Yeah Case, we're all here. Keep yer head on ya shoulders man and tell me what's goin' on. Where are you guys?"

"_Bishop says he's givin' you guys five minutes to get here with Rilien, man, and we're gone. Him and his fancy helicopter are parked right on top of April's shop."_

"_Oh my God! Casey!"_

"_Shit is that the Foot? They all look like little black spots!"_

"_Forget the spots!" _April's voice was shrill and panicky now, "_they're a whole _sea!"

Whatever words between the couple that ensued were nearly drowned out and horribly chopped at the unmistakable sound of whipping wind. Leo was already motioning for Mikey, Don, and Maeleyn to grab their weapons since they assumed this day would be like every other. Relaxed and as harmless as the days once were before this…synthetic blood craziness descended upon the family. "C'mon." Mikey tapped Maeleyn in the arm and trotted into the dojo so she could pick up their weapons.

"We don't have time to make packs, let's _move_!" Leo gripped his katanas and withdrew them in a flash, holding both in a steely grip. "Sensei?" pausing only to gauge who was getting Rilien given the fact since four days ago the only progress he'd made was being able to stand for ten and fifteen minute stints without collapsing Leo looked to his sensei, undoubtedly using up the only still moment in the impending chaos.

"I am coming, my son. Please, assist Mr. Spector."

"I got 'im." it made more sense for someone like Michelangelo or Raphael to get the recovering man as Leonardo and Donatello had to strap their weapons to their backs. It was questionable as to whether Maeleyn could carry him, especially since they'd heard the panicked exchange between Casey and April. Apparently they would get no rest; they'd have to hit the ground running. As the leader Leonardo felt it better for one of the true Hamatos to carry Rilien; Maeleyn wasn't even a full three months into her ninja training yet and the most she should focus on should be her own life. "You okay there, Mr. Spector?"

If not for the circumstances Leo would actually smile at the politeness in which Raph regarded the other Spector. _That _was rare. In the same category of rareness as a genuine Raphael hug not brought on by pity. Donatello was the first up the ladder and out into the sewer system. Maeleyn gave her kamas a light spin, her thighs strapped down with shurikens, which she'd found herself decent in handling should her kamas be forced away from her in a tight situation.

To compliment her armed thighs shurikens gleamed in a show of quick access just below the leather scraps wrapped around her wrist. When the Hamato family members had given her the bandanna they'd given her the complimenting knee pads, elbow pads, and leather scraps soon after. She truly looked like she belonged. "We mustn't waste time. Come, my children." Splinter darted out after Donatello, displaying speed Maeleyn nearly forgot he possessed. Like Donatello, the pacifist, Splinter was so laid back and calm it was hard for her to think of either of them as lethal…capable of killing, no less.

Usually she just took the elevator after figuring out they had one months ago. Exploring the sewer had been in the first month they'd met. It quickly lost its appeal but she knew the ways no less; the boys had drilled it into her any living moment of the day they could. Instead of wasting time dashing like mad to find the manhole that would put them out closest to the shop they went up the first one they saw, leaping across the rooftops.

It cut their travel time and allowed the sunlight to highlight their athletic bodies. Foot ninjas were already waiting on them. The thin black bands of enemy ninjas continued to thicken until at last they were on the rooftop 2nd Time Around where it seemed like the whole roof had been redecorated with black ninjas and nothing else. Maeleyn's heart thundered in fear. Since the Hunter and even Gustav's initial attack on them she'd only fought petty criminals.

Her chest tightened, feeling the onset of a panic attack. This was a _real _battle. No more practice! These people wouldn't play nice because they knew she was new at this whole ninja thing. They were out for blood.

She sighed, trying to twist her stomach into knots to still herself. Maybe that would kill those pesky butterflies! Maeleyn licked her dry lips and tightened her grip so her muscles would quit shivering. "Just focus, my daughter. By what I have taught you, you cannot fail." Splinter promised in his relaxing elder voice as the Foot continued to crawl around them, making a circular enclosure cutting off possibility of escape. Like Raph had once told her, there was no 'start'; it began in a swirl of chaotic, unprompted motion; a million arms of a black beast lashing out. Some had weapons, some didn't.

_Whomp, whomp, whomp! _blades of the helicopter began to spin faster and faster until the blades looked like a whirring, silver disc nearly transparent against the sky. Gusts swept through the single-roof battle ground and what dirt on the roof, or grainy particles in the air, threatened to scratch at the retinas of all battle participants. "Man what's up with all you guys takin' cheap shots? I'm supportin' a man here!" Raph ducked one of the punches going for his face. Trying to fight while keeping Rilien safe was hard for the terrapin; more to protect. Donnie and Splinter were covering what he couldn't keep an eye on though.

Rilien was helping as best he could by straightening his legs when Raph got the 'okay' to spin him. His extra weight and force came in handy. The chopper was just lifting off the ground. "Guys!" April cried, "get in!"

"Step away from the door, Ms. O'Neil, we need to close it." the audacity of Bishop! Daring to shut them out when they had the one he'd been looking for all this time. It was all a show, really, for the agent. Make them panic and struggle to meet him; after being 'saved' they would be more apt to listen to him. Believe him.

"Oh no ya don't! Hold on, Rilien." Raph tossed the man up like a toy, jumping up as if to catch him, eliciting a shriek of horror from Maeleyn. Did he just toss her _uncle_? Like he knew he could Raphael caught the man, wrapping one arm around his tiny, thin waist as he jammed a sai dangerously into the skin of the vehicle, two inches just beneath the door of the plane; the door threatening to shut as he contemplated just how to keep it open.

"Give 'im to me Raph." Casey was holding the door open with one foot as he elbowed the nagging army general out of his way, stifling the interference. Rilien was handed over; shivering, possibly scared, but in one piece. Raph clutched the door track and groaned; his weight had suddenly increased meaning the plane was getting higher off the ground and that the family had made a Hamato chain to escape the roof. Master Splinter was the first to crawl up the chain, as they were most worried for him (he wasn't exactly young anymore, despite his amazing ninja skills). Leo followed, assisting Mikey and Don, and eventually Raph himself.

Maeleyn embedded her claw-like nails into the upper left side of his leg as a means of attachment. Apparently she didn't trust her turtle-scaling skills and saw it fit to wait until she could be assisted. Raph swiveled his body once perched on the door track, thus blocking the insistent piece of machinery determined to close on him, and observed her for a second. In turning around to sit down and be at a point where he could help he'd turned her around like a spinning toy. She faced west, towards the street where 2nd Time Around had stood and now only made a brown speck against the blue sky as they flew away from Manhattan.

He forced his three-fingered hands under her arms and pried her off his legs, elbows digging in to her stomach to assure the terrapin she wouldn't slip. He had her. Raph gave a small snort of relief as Maeleyn pulled her tail across her lap and squished next to he and Mikey while the door finally slid shut. The Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk wasn't built for the twelve people that occupied it. April twined herself around Casey, heart still in a panic of being basically abducted and forced from her own house in the early hours of the morning.

The Foot had come swiftly, and in what little droves of men they had left. Leo's incessant self-contemplation, worry, and nagging had finally been eased. During Rilien's near half-month recovery all had been too quiet for the eldest. It wasn't _like _Shredder to be so quiet, to have not made a move. For nearly fourteen nights Leo sat in the light of a single melting candle to contemplate his enemy's angle, to possibly try and think of what he could be building up to. At the moment he had a partial answer, and quite a cliché one: a final showdown.

_That's a gimme…_Leo thought, crossing his arms and maintaining the adrenaline-fear-induced silence. Shredder wanted to annihilate those that opposed him, so why not do it in one fell swoop where your enemies are all in one place? Bishop was a wildcard to the eldest turtle. Just _how _did he know the Shredder was coming to converge all his forces on the shop, how did he know what his timeframe for escape was? Unrest bred in his stomach.

Leo had the feeling they weren't seeing the whole truth. Bishop wasn't generally nice, or hardly cared whether their shells were in danger or not. _Maybe it's because Shredder is an evil alien_, Leo thought, _Bishop's been hunting him for years_. Either way, Bishop was acting very out of character. _I smell ulterior motive…_

* * *

"I told you I _don't know_! Bishop's lying!" Rose stood next to the beaten Kier and observed the futileness of his struggling in the metal gurney that once held down Raphael Hamato before he tricked Hun and escaped using the very device supposed to dissect him. Said blonde Goliath was also present in the interrogation, having quite the time flipping and slapping the flexible gurney to send the man into nausea all over again.

Liars were to be punished.

"Right, Spector. I'll play along…if you _didn't _find Rilien and the turtles how did you get so beat up? Hmm?"

"Bishop fucking clocked me! He's got a fist made of damn metal! That shit, hurts, you know."

"Getting hit by the Shredder will hurt worse." Hun told him, cracking his knuckles. He felt like punching the impudent man himself. This one was being especially hard to break. Annoyingly hard, actually.

"Talk, now!" Kier's head snapped back into the gurney at the force of Hun's right hook. The guy's fist took up the entirety of the right side of his face for crying out loud!"

"Hun, Hun," Rose chided. "Too physical much? We need to approach this subtly." She turned her back, now facing the table full of various torture instruments. The blonde scientist picked no obviously sharp weapon and skimmed her finger over each texture thoughtfully. A navy man was hard to impress into fear. "By now I'm sure Bishop's shown you my little project so why not make a deal?" Rose didn't wait for him to answer.

"You tell us what we need to know and I won't put one on you."

"I don't have anything _to _tell you because it never happened! None of it! Not the fight, not finding my brother…nothing!" Kier swore. Why were these people not listening to him? Maybe Bishop had pulled a more convincing story than he once thought. He knew the Shredder and Bishop were co-conspirators in this, at least for a part, probably unaware both sides had a mind to double-cross the other. Kier prayed to stay alive; he needed to be the wild card that canceled out the mental Rose Chaplin.

"Enough bartering," a new, icy voice cut in. The Shredder, his ex-boss. "I'll make him a deal he cannot refuse." the Shredder flipped the table around so the light bared down into the navy man's eyes to the point where it burned and he scrunched his face to avoid it. "Bishop has failed to come through on his deal so I'll give you one chance, Spector, to choose a better side."

"What's in it for me, besides wanting to rip Bishop a new asshole?" Kier asked, squinting his eyes as he struggled to keep them open and gaze at the light reflecting off the glinting, sharp armor of Bishop's adversary.

"The satisfaction of taking everything from him. All you have to do is tell me where he is…"

"Are you going to kill me?" his worst fear was not seeing Rilien again, not being able to tell Maeleyn he loved her no matter how she looked now. She was still his warrior princess, and always would be.

"Not if you cooperate." Shredder's voice was tempting, seductive with the clear use of malice and slyness.

"Fine. I expect to be released, but I will tell you. Anything to take down Bishop at this point."

"Of course. Now…where is Bishop?"

"Area Fifty-One, Nevada."

"You've been a great help, Mr. Spector. You'll be released shortly. Hun, Chaplin, see me outside this instant!"

"Yes sir."

"Of course, Master."

The Shredder stood outside the door which was securely closed so the latest captured idiot couldn't hear them. "Are you really going to let him go?" Rose asked incredulously. A smart woman, a smart man, would not question Oroku Saki but this was way too…nice…to be considered normal for him. The Shredder gave a short evil laugh.

"I didn't specify in what way he would be free. I prefer to think of him as free to walk about a confined space." he said. "Bishop has crossed me for the last time! We arrived upon the shop and he was escaping with those wretched turtles' friends. Only that idiotic bull was left, and he's in no fair condition."

"How dare he cheat you, Master!" Hun scowled at Bishop's audacity.

"Kiss ass." Rose hissed to the right-hand man of the clan. Hun ignored her, continuing on in his supportive angry rant.

"And how are we to repay him for giving us the leftovers?" Hun inquired. Shredder had let he and Karai in on the plan; no one else. Especially since Hun had let it slip that Stockman was building some sort of cyborg suit. Had Stockman not possessed an ego the size of the Atlantic Ocean it never would've been known. That and if he'd closed the door to the empty room he wouldn't have seen him blabbing his intentions as he felt up the very woman that stood next to him.

"By taking everything he has. Now that we know his location we'll ambush him!"

"But you can't just storm Area Fifty-One! It's not that easy!" Rose objected, attempting to poke a big hole in Shredder's simple plan. He turned his narrowed ruby eyes on her. She refused to flinch, standing her ground.

"Didn't you once work in that facility?" he asked her in a rhetorical manner. Shredder knew she did.

"I…I…" damn. Caught! "Karai!" hissed Rose, clenching her fist angrily. Weak, bright crescent moons formed on her palm, leaving evidence of her harsh grip. "Yes sir, I did."

"Then you can get us inside, Ms. Chaplin. Did you honestly think I hadn't known? My daughter is very resourceful…I wouldn't have kept you all this time if you didn't have something I needed." _just like Bishop, _she thought bitterly, sucking on the lower right portion of her lip. Her eyes began to shimmer with forming tears. She was just as expendable as any other, right?

No one really cared about her value…at least…not the one she wanted to. That was long gone from her. Chaplin was more distant now than ever; if they were in the same room, he would leave. If they walked the same corridor he would brush along the wall like she had some sort of disease, refusing to touch her. Every look was poison, killing her inside. Chaplin had inspired her, really, to make those collars. Poison for him, to honor him and his looks.

"Wha…what are we going to do about Mr. Spector?" Rose finally found her voice, so weak, so hoarse and full of tears. She couldn't stop thinking about Chaplin; once so close to him and now the thing he wished to see dead the most. If she was going to leave this facility, to do one last favor for this metal-clad man she best make her big exit. She had no doubt in her mind the Shredder would kill her after they got into Area Fifty-One, or shortly after. A weak plan, but Rose could draw out hacking into Area Fifty-One because she had helped make the security protocols she knew there were layers among layers to infiltrate, especially with it being a top-secret governmental facility.

At best she thought she could buy herself a week. And, depending on whether or not Bishop moved the turtles back to Manhattan to elude them once again, she may live to see a week and a half. The only thing she knew for certain was that Shredder was tired of waiting. His initial month to plan and let Rilien recover was growing thin, as was his patience. Who cared if the weakling was fully recovered?

As long as his brain still worked, and he could sit and work with his hands he was ripe for the taking. It killed and irritated the Shredder to not know what the turtles were up to for a month, to not know how they were preparing for his challenge. Most of all he wasn't sure how much Rilien or Gustav had leaked, so now was a better time to seize the escape scientist than ever. He wouldn't want to give the freaks too much of an advantage, or any more than what they already had. "He'll be taken care of physically by Hun. Put your collar on him. After she has put the collar on him, you, Hun, will take him to that miserable shack. Then we will play the waiting game."

Rose tried to regain her once sly, happy composure. Shredder had thoroughly ruined it by blatantly admitting he knew of her past employment with his enemy, the man he'd just recently found to be double-crossing him in the biggest way. It was a scary thing, really, similar to being told a beating was coming but being unsure as to when and how severely. "He should bring his cell phone. No reception. It'll drive him crazy."

"Hun, go free our guest."

"Yes, Master."

"Assist him, Ms. Chaplin."

"Yes sir."

She moved out of the hallway and back into the interrogation room, turning up her nose at Karai, who made herself apparent, as Shredder made his way down the hall, down the stairs, and off to a different part of his massive building. She scowled at the blonde, flipping her shining onyx hair snootily. "Daddy's girl." jeered Rose, unable to resist bitchy female jabs. The chinky-eyed bitch had moved in on her brother-her territory-and was on better ground with the biggest, current threat to her. Both facts drove her crazy.

"Loose slut. You dishonor yourself and Chaplin's name to be so 'friendly' with Stockman."

"Hey!" Rose whipped around, pointing an accusing finger at the Japanese woman who assumed her defensive stance as a reflex. "I'm doing what I have to, to get information! What the hell are you doing to help your daddy besides a background check on me?"

"You're the one I need to look out for. I'm not concerned with anyone else."

"Good, you should be. But I have to say I'm flattered." a cold, perfect smile graced Rose's lips. Karai folded her arms across her chest in displeasure. Rose's fighting was as weak as her sexual appeal. "Don't you have something to be doing?" Rose squinted nastily at her, opening the door to Kier's prison where she could hear the thick _whump! _of Hun's meaty fist beating the restrained man.

"Don't you?" countered Karai which evoked a scowl from Rose.

"What makes you so happy? You're actually having good comebacks today. They must've upgraded that lousy brain they gave you." Karai grinned a bright, beautiful smile of white teeth framed by hot pink lips. She pressed close to Rose, backing her into the wall near the door. Karai _wanted _to feel Rose's reaction after she told her.

"I just fucked your brother, and he was great." instantly Rose's jaw locked. No, no! He couldn't have! But she loved him!

"Lying whore! You fucking lying whore!" Rose's first instinct was to swing, which Karai easily dodged with her trained ninja skill. Her vision went red; Rose was shaking. Various thoughts of hurt, rejection, and disbelief coursed through her. It made her madder that Karai dodged all her blows, grinning all the while. Hun emerged, Kier highly incapacitated, and crossed her arms over her chest before wrapping his arms around her, squishing her against him and rendering the spitting, screaming, striking, woman harmless so she could do her part.

Karai smirked happily. Who cared if her father knew? In fact, to show the utmost disgrace for the alien that had finally gone overboard in his desire to smite his enemies she'd dropped the very bandanna with his symbol over her eyes before making love to Chaplin. It made things more sensual, more memorable. She would have rather made love to him prematurely in the current life, as it could be taken away from her without notice due to her profession, than to never have told him at all.

Besides, who knew how tolerant her father could stand to be anymore? He'd already lost his beautiful hand. Her thoughts drew more to their enemies, the turtles (which really weren't her enemies; she merely fought them to honor her father, to prove she was his daughter. The alien possessed a much stronger center of hatred than she could ever hope to achieve) who would undoubtedly make another epic battle with her father. They always did. Every time the Shredder crawled back, getting a new body or patching up the broken one.

Who's to say this time he would come back at all? As it stood Bishop the governmental alien hunter was against them, Rose Chaplin was personally against her (and possibly her father for disfiguring her brother), Stockman was planning his own mutiny, Kier Spector was a wild card, and, of course the turtles were assumed to be against them. Maybe, however, she could side with them. Though she hadn't done it often there were times in the past Karai had gone against her father's motives and ideas, giving them fair warning (more than they deserved) and even going as far as helping them when her father was in the chaotic, overly-destructive side of wrong. This was definitely one of those times.

She couldn't convince herself anymore that those dead half human, half animal bodies didn't bother her. That the putrid smell of guts underneath the overly-sterile clean didn't bring her close to vomiting. Shredder was too far gone in the wrong for her not to want to escape the madness. Maybe in helping the turtles she could earn some good karma, and it would be enough for the nightmares of month's past to finally let her rest in sleep. Her aimless walking brought her to the eighth floor where she stood before the communications room, staring blankly into the computerized room as she returned to the current.

Why was the screen bleeping, glowing a ghoulish green? That indicated a message, but Bishop wasn't scheduled for a communication with his father, and it certainly wouldn't have shown up on this floor. It would've shown up in his personal chambers, and she would've been called in to listen. Cautiously she stepped into the room; the beeping pattern indicated that the message was strictly audio; had it been a recorded video they could log or splice it would've been flickering on the starting clip, waiting to play. She slipped the headphones over her ears that now-dead technicians used to use to pin point their enemies once upon a time.

Her eyes widened. It was Bishop having a conversation with what guardsmen or helping hands he had on the base. After the audio ended she erased it, wanting her father not to hear of it. She was sure someone trying to kiss his ass (namely Rose) would be able to retrieve it but as long as she had time to get to Area Fifty-One she was fine. That would be long enough to tell the turtles what she had just heard and try to get them out of there, if they would listen. To bring a team or not?

She could always tell him she was staking out the place. As a single unit Karai was better trained than the average Foot soldier, and faster than a group, too. Karai told her father, who easily agreed and thought nothing of treachery as she took a small Foot plane and started out towards Nevada. Hopefully she could make it in time! But then again…on the tape Bishop had never specified a timeline. That was a double-edged sword of knowledge to possess.

On the one hand she may have enough time to get there and warn them, and on the other she might be too late.

"As my sworn enemy, Leonardo, I cannot let Bishop destroy my rival, or his family. Not in such a way…"

* * *

"I believe you've been here once, turtles. Right?" Bishop gave a sarcastic, grim smile and gestured to the innards of the government base. Raph scowled, snorting through his nose.

"Yeah, just as fun as Disney Land…" he shot back icily. Bastard knew the memories they had of this place were anything _but _fond and sweet.

"I've undergone some…modifications since we last met." Bishop moved past the sardonic comment and motioned them to follow him to the west side of the large first floor that looked to be at least the size of a Walmart.

"You made us beds?" Don asked in a highly doubtful manner as he unstrapped his bo staff and poked the nearest bed experimentally. No mine-death trap in that one. Bishop gave another icy smile.

"Indeed, Donatello. When I figured out the Shredder would be coming to get you all I decided not to let that disgusting alien have his way. I want him to suffer, and when he's at his weakest I'll capture him. Since Area Fifty-One is the safest place you can be I arranged some sleeping space for you."

"There's only seven beds." Leo pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest. There were nine of them total, with April and Maeleyn being the only females in the group. Bishop pushed the glasses up on his nose.

"How observant, Leonardo. As…outlandish…as I may seem I was raised on the notion boys and girls shouldn't sleep in the same area." his eyes fell to Maeleyn and suddenly she felt sick. His gaze was cold, piercing, and oozed of nauseating evil.

"And just how well will you be catering to us, Agent Bishop?"

"What on-site hands I have will be catering to you; since it's obvious your family doesn't trust me." Bishop soothed at least that worry in the figures that had already tangled with him once. _At least he's thoughtful on that count_, Mikey thought as he looked around the room. It was too clean, too bright, and lacked personality to an annoying degree. White walls, white furniture, white polished floor.

"So how long do we have to stay here?" Leo asked, not wanting to be in the facility, a _well guarded _facility with one of their enemies any longer than he had to.

"As long as it takes for the Shredder to quit combing New York for you." _Or until I manage to get Maeleyn in the chamber with Slash, then the rest of you can disappear, _thought the agent. He led them to his communications center near the upper east side of the floor and activated a live-streaming camera with six different angles, all of them associated with April's shop. Black figures whispered and shot past the screens at various time, but it was obvious to all the recently-rescued that the Foot were still looking for them, searching for clues. Don mentally mapped the position of the cameras; two outside (one in front and one in back), two in the shop (one situated in the center, and one situated near the front door which kind of overlapped the one outside but just a tad), one was April's computer (obvious by the recording angle starring her couch as the centerpiece), and the last being pointed towards the west-wall window that Don himself had personally installed.

_Since they're all on the same frequency Bishop must've hacked the cameras and then put a time bug in the computer, _Don thought as he watched the timestamp on the video document the current hour, running on military time. Mikey's growling stomach drew the genius out of his tense observation. "Dudes, I'm hungry," whined the youngest male turtle, "we never finished breakfast!" he quit punching buttons and spinning the small microphone, proceeding to poke Raph as Don radiated the 'nerd' hormones while inspecting the cameras. This place was too boring for him, and he had to do _something _to alleviate the sheer nervousness and number of dark ideas already forming in his imaginative head from being corralled in a governmental testing base with Bishop and his goons. He hadn't forgotten how close Bishop came to cutting him open!

Plus this was a way to annoy the man. He was being 'nice' in the glare he sent the littlest brother, more focused on Donatello and his close analyzing. Bishop had to get Donatello away from the screens before he caught on. The idea came to him after hearing Michelangelo's stomach again.

"Camilla, come in please. We have matters that need be attended." Bishop spoke into his wrist communicator hidden somewhere near the sleeve of his always-pressed black suit. It took roughly five minutes or so but a slightly thick Hispanic woman with her curly brown hair drawn back into a high ponytail came in, her white lab coat snapping behind her, accentuating her gait. Her slender-shaped mocha eyebrows rose and she gave a wise nod to the turtles, finally connecting what Bishop had been babbling about when he'd mentioned guests earlier in the morning before taking his leave.

"This is Camilla, one of the last medical helpers I had left."

"Whassa matter," Raph asked curiously in a dry tone, "your other one quit?"

"Or go to the zoo?" Don nearly smirked when Bishop's face hardened at his comment. Don was no idiot; he and Bishop both knew this. It probably struck the genius turtle the instant he saw the news report and the name that the woman hadn't come out of nowhere. That she was connected to one of his enemies, and since he'd paired her with Gustav instantly the brain must've suspected Bishop, as it was he and his men that had snatched the blood bag from him that night.

"If you please, Camilla, our guests are hungry. Perhaps you'll take them to the kitchen area and make them something."

"I will. Follow me please."

"What makes you so peppy in this place?" April instantly asked the aid once they were out of earshot of Bishop.

"I'm making more than enough money to bring my _abuelita_ over. She'll be living with me soon, right here on the base." Camilla gestured widely to the place as she opened the third door on the south wall, leading the group through a short corridor and another door before revealing a converted lab. What was once a storage room for specimen, microscopes, fluid, and spare cages had been totally cleaned and furnished with appliances, good lighting, a stout white island to compliment the white marble countertops stretching in a curvy pattern along the wall and back behind the island. She had two stoves side-by-side to work with (a built-in flat top and traditional oven), a sink, chopping board, blender, and at least six drawers built in beneath the edge of the marble to pull utensils out of.

"So what do you want?" she moved to the industrial-sized fridge stocked full of plenty of meats, vegetables, and other natural ingredients as she waited. Before she'd decided to enroll in med school Camilla spent fifteen of her forty-eight years as a chef and waitress at various diners. Her family had a rich heritage of cooking good food, and she adored cooking but quickly switched to something that could keep her living - cooks weren't exactly in high demand since anyone could learn how to cook.

"How do we know you won't drug it?" Maeleyn finally asked. The question of Bishop's motives had been nagging at her since they were all smashed together in the plane. Camilla smiled sweetly.

"I have a no-kill policy, dear. And I don't think Mr. Bishop would've rescued you if he meant to kill you."

"I doubt that." Raph snorted as he crossed his arms.

"Well," determined not to let his cynicism put her in an odd spot Camilla just smiled. "_I _won't, how's that? I don't believe in killing."

"Then why are you working with him?" Don pressed, "surely you know the work he does?"

"I'm in the dark about things, myself. He's an odd man. But, for family _niño_, you make sacrifices you may not like. You do them anyways because you love your _familia_." Splinter could relate to that, at least, as he thought of the turtles' younger years as he raised them. There had been many times when he went without food so they could divide and eat amongst themselves what he'd scavenged. He did it so they could stay strong, survive. He was much more willing to eat the nasty thing than they were, and being so young they needed the best of nutrition he could find.

"You can all go explore the place," Camilla offered. "Preparation will vary from dish to dish. I just make plenty for you to eat. That way all tummies will be full and happy." she smiled, waving them off to go explore. Splinter and Leo highly enforced the idea of the buddy system as they split up to explore the large floor, wondering what was up on the smaller second floor, and wondering if there was a basement. Creepy guys and mad science labs always had basements, or so Michelangelo told them.

Raph went with Maeleyn, Leo with Splinter, April and Casey together, and Donatello with Michelangelo. Rilien, once deposited at the kitchen room table, preferred to stay sitting. It felt to him that he'd stood enough for one day, and his legs had minor bruising from allowing Raph to use him as injuring momentum. Raphael's amber eyes flicked to Maeleyn, who hugged herself, as they walked quietly along the north side wall, peeking into the lone corridor leading away from the main room.

"You okay?" so he didn't know how to use words that well, he knew what he was looking for. The terrapin put his money on her odd behavior stemming from the fight. She was in a light shock, he thought. "You did, uh, you did good fighting." Maeleyn gave a small smile as he elbowed her in the side. She kind of missed the buddy-like sling of the arm around her neck from the days when he wasn't too pissed off and they actually united to rant about something.

"Thanks…" Maeleyn murmured. She _was _at odds about the fighting. It had been absolutely terrifying! The real unease stemmed from this place, though. It was too clean, too big. Bishop made her uneasy. He was like some sort of plotting lion waiting to eat them all, or the cliché hidden serial killer that picks off people one by one in some locked-down area where no escape is possible.

It was impossible not to let it bug her anymore. For days she'd just wanted to snuggle up to Raphael and tell him she loved him. Perhaps it was brought on by Leo's seriousness, or the situation itself, maybe Mikey's fantasy imaginings, but Maeleyn felt this cataclysmic sense of impending doom. The kind where-if in a movie-someone would comment, "they should've said I love you before they got offed." the kind that people regret because they realize any second they die. In those seconds they realize everything they haven't done, haven't said, to the people they love.

"I love you…" she whispered, stopping short in front of Raphael and grabbing his face as she pressed her lips gently to his. It was a sweet, long kiss. A series of pecks, as she held on to what she might not be able to anymore in the coming days. Raph pulled away when she finally released him, unable to deny that something had been stirred in him, though he wouldn't say it. Then, like looking into Mikey's puppy eyes or seeing the light bulb click in Donnie's brown eyes he realized what the kiss had said. _I love you, I'm scared. I don't want to die. I love you…God I love you._

"Don't worry," he wrapped his arms around her, elbows prodding at her sides when he brought his hands up to comb her silky tresses back from her asparagus green face, spotting the tiny widow's peak she had. "Nothin's gonna happen to us. And if it does, I'll be right there…" he kissed her forehead and felt her bow her nose into his chest, letting his lips rest there on her forehead.

Her worries sparked a mourn-based make out. The tragic, slow, sweet kind star-crossed lovers give when they realized another bout of separation is due to come. He brushed a hand down her smooth, somewhat warm body as her tail curled around his leg, drawing them closer to one another. Their make outs were hardly sweet; all clawing, pinning, scratching, pulling, pushing usually, but this was different. This was sweet, sensual.

He wasn't dying to get in her as he once did. This part of Raphael was barely shown, at least in this way, though it often escaped in a rare hug with his brothers or genuine concern for their health. She wasn't his brothers, though. She was Maeleyn. His lover. His other half.

The tip of her scaly tail brushed the bottom seam the texture of his lower plastron made against his skin and Raph shivered. Pulling her bottom lip down with his large green thumb Raph slipped his tongue into her mouth and gave it a languid caress. The rough calluses on his hands traces soft patterns across her back, looping around the sides of her half-detached shell where her skin was more sensitive. She shivered against him and Raph puffed hot air across her collarbone, his tongue numb with the taste of hers. She was completely exposed before him.

Her mutation covered nothing, while her breasts were discolored with the soft patches of plastron yet hardened he had no obstacles. She gave an airy moan as his fingers brushed past the junction between her thighs. She had to pick a teaser, didn't she? Were they really going to do it? Here, now?

"Not out in the open!" hissed Maeleyn, finally regaining her senses from the lust-dampened brain of hers. Raph looked around, obviously miffed about being denied. They were having a moment and she goes and ruins it! Great, because that's what he wanted.

"We got a room right there," he nodded to a pitch black room with who-knows-what in it. Maeleyn gave a tiny smile in response to his caring, wolfish grin. He thought fast, didn't he? "Do you…do you want to?" Raphael had never even dreamed he'd get this far. Not with anyone, and especially not with her, what with Maeleyn being a downright annoying bitch when he first met her. She gave him no verbal response, instead pulling him up and leading the way into the room.

She knew in her heart no man could touch Raphael, and in turn she hadn't known a real man until Raphael. No one could make her body scorch like that; no one's touch could make her so crazy and fill her with some nearly insatiable wanton, unexplainable craving. Maeleyn couldn't believe she was letting her mind slip from her so but her body was telling her it had been more than long enough. The flex of his strong, cold arms under her legs dully registered in her mind as she twined her arms around his neck and let him blindly carry the two of them into the room they would soon occupy without a care, lost in each other.

The table he'd laid her on was cold, and instinctively she arched her back upward. Her body met his, as Raphael was gentle but eager to hover over her. He wanted to know _everything _about her. His eyes could easily tell there were patches of scales along her shoulder, continuing in a small wrap just about a quarter-inch or so around the shoulder blades, and he knew from when they first fought on the floor her calcifications weren't as hard as his. They were in total darkness.

Maeleyn listened to the whisper of his mask against his skin as he blinded his own hungry eyes. In the dark he couldn't see anyways, and for a turtle that lacked romantic vocabulary he intended to wow with his touch. Though callused, though rough, he could be gentle for her. He planted a soft-lipped kiss to the base of her throat and brushed his nose along the column of her neck, indulging in the somewhat spicy honey and milk smell she exuded.

* * *

Camilla sighed, arranging the various dishes in a small semi-circle, then a line. She would have to watch and see what Maeleyn ate most, and then make it especially for her. That was, after all, what Mr. Bishop instructed. He'd give it a day or two-and she was ordered to, as well-in order to let the turtles' suspicion slip and get her properly accommodating to Slash. The rat known as 'Master Splinter' hobbled in humming a Japanese tune, followed by what was presumed to be the eldest turtle.

As Camilla didn't know how to make Japanese tea she took an interesting lesson on how to make it accented with jasmine, heaping healthy helpings of various foods on their plates. Splinter and Leonardo ate mildly healthy, she noted, picking at the fruits and vegetables. Rilien ate _anything _that came his way. Camilla found a special interest in him, in helping him grow bigger like a true underfed _niño_. Mikey, like Rilien, wasn't picky about the selection.

"_Dude!_ Are those empanadas? Gimme one, bro!"

"Leo, don't do it! Remember the last time Mikey had chili?"

"Empanada doesn't _have _chili in it, Don!"

"It has chorizo in it! Or it can, same class!" Don defended himself. He _really _didn't want to be suffering from Mikey's noxious emissions anymore than he had to. And who's to say how many available bathrooms Bishop had out here anyways? Donatello was determined not to let his little brother force the rest of them to use the bathroom outside due to his own bowel movements.

"I'll give you _one_," Leo decided, handing over the tiny empanada that looked incredibly smaller in their large hands. Mikey was satisfied, and the eldest could only crack a crooked grin at the look of anguish on Don's face.

"_Not _sharing a room with him tonight." Don hissed firmly.

"Don't have to," Leo said simply with a deflective shrug of Donnie's insistent personality and slightly childish (but well founded) behavior, "we'll all suffer then." Splinter gave a small chuckle.

"_Told _you I could find my way back!"

"You followed your nose, Casey. That generally doesn't work."

"Show's what faith you have in me…"

"The true way to a man's heart is through his stomach." Camilla mused as she set another two plates for the couple. Finally she turned around, the new task before her was wrapping up said food, or at least to the point where anyone who wanted seconds could simply seal or cover the exposed food back up for the others. Then she counted the plates, sure she'd counted all the beings correctly earlier.

"Where is your red brother? And the girl?" Camilla pointed her wooden spoon used for dishing the fruit salad at the two empty plates. The others exchanged glances.

"Maybe they fell asleep…like, jetlag, dude." Mikey shrugged. He favored a nap, himself, and would've had longer than a twenty minute one had Don not woke him up jabbering about the technology.

"You sure there's no…'hidey holes' around here?" Don asked curiously, picking at the fruit after he'd swallowed a mouthful of mashed potatoes. Camilla crossed her arms thoughtfully.

"No places they can get to. Mr. Bishop has secure areas under lock and key. Sliding identification. Unless someone left a door open they should be around here."

"Maybe they just forgot where the kitchen is." Mikey shrugged. He had a feeling Raph was up to something forbidden, via intuition of his natural prankster ways.

"But Mikey Raph couldn't take a nap this long. It's been over _three hours _since we last decided to poke around." Leo pointed his fork almost accusingly at the little brother. Everyone blabbed to Mikey, asked him to make an alibi when they were going against him or Splinter. Who's to say his baby brother didn't know anything?

"Actually, Leo, this is Raph we're talking about. He likes his sleep. It's almost plausible."

"Speak of the devil," murmured the eldest as Raphael walked into the kitchen. He gave the eldest a flat look. Between brothers he knew that curious, accusing stare. Raph just hoped no one could smell it too bad. They'd found a small exercise room that looked to be _made _for a turtle.

A large pond (which he swam in plenty to diffuse the scent of them before toweling off), plenty of leafy greens around framing the walls and underfoot to simulate grass; nice warm sand, basking rock…everything! "And where were you?" Leo asked curiously, pushing the plate Camilla had just filled for Raph towards his first little brother, earning a snort of response.

"Found the exercise room."

"_I _found a sunning rock," Maeleyn said proudly, "and _I'm _not sharing." that would be the _one _feminine pleasure she had if she could help it. She missed the sun on her skin. Raph counted too, but they had to keep up appearances. "Who's this plate for?" Maeleyn asked, nudging the empty plate next to her. Camilla looked sweetly to the plate, intent on keeping the group cheery so they would let down their guard.

"Mr. Bishop. He does eat, you know. I guess he's just keeping an eye out for those…_villanos_ after you. He'll probably eat later. In the meantime, eat up _niños_!" Camilla turned slightly from the almost-full table and observed them all, fixing what uncovered dishes Raphael had left behind him. Maeleyn had a small bit of steak, applesauce, green beans, fruit, and a bagel. She'd have to write that down somewhere.

* * *

"Lieutenant Rodgers, may I see you a moment?" Bishop beckoned the nearest armed man from the outer patrol into the communications room.

"Yes sir, Mr. Bishop. What is it, sir?"

"I know we didn't melt down _all _the cages around here. Find your five strongest cages, we'll need them."

"For those male turtles sir?"

"And their rodent father."

"And what are we going to do with them once we have them?"

"I believe NASA would be interested in Donatello…if not the Shredder. Maybe we can keep him. Did I ever tell you he was the one to disarm the homemade nuclear device constructed by H.A.T.E?"

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, lieutenant. We're talking about a boy who could spearhead the way to American superiority on the battlefront." Bishop explained, highly confident in Donatello.

"What about the others?"

"I've never cared much for Raphael. He can be someone's pet. Or a fighting attraction…he's too temperamental to do anything worthy with. We can always pit him against our other experiments. He'd be a sufficient strength test. Or he could test our weapons…tie him up and see which intensity level leaves a fleshy window to peek through…"

"Kind of sick isn't it? Isn't he the one that always uses the enemy weapons? Is that smart? I think Slash would rip him apart."

"Me too," Bishop agreed with a slight nod, "but it'd be fun to watch…"

"What about that annoying orange one you almost got a hold of?"

"Michelangelo? He's the only one I don't have a plan for. He's very…gullible, easy to scare. I'm not sure if mentally torturing him would be fun or if it would just be better to watch all the happiness leave him. That annoying personality he has would make him fun to break."

"We could make him a work mule?"

"Doesn't have enough focus for that."

"Put him to use as another strength test?"

"No…too fast. He'd just run around and hide like some child."

"Exotic pet? Farm hand to some crazy person, like those…'H.A.T.E' people?"

"Maybe. Michelangelo fits the 'pet' aspect very well. Easily broken, childish, eventually coming to depend on someone once he knows he's lost his brothers and alone…although I can't underestimate him. He's got his own cleverness."

"Leonardo? What'll we do about him?"

"Leonardo I have too many options for. Perhaps I'll gift-wrap him for the Shredder. Or I could do my genetic testing off of him. He seems to be the 'golden' student. Although I've tried before perhaps further tests would bring about a stable life form…"

"That's it?"

"No. I was thinking personal slave, errand boy. There's nothing more disgracing in his family than to serve the enemy."

"How do you plan on controlling them? They have years of ninja training. They're not your average animal, Mr. Bishop…"

"Obviously, you imbecile. If Rose Chaplin can make a poison collar I can go back to her old work and see how she made the chip for Gustav."

"Surely you have a backup plan? If you cage them all together they'll have a way to get out. Especially with that smart one…" Bishop grinned and pulled a katana from his belt he'd been hiding on the inside of his thigh.

"I may have been around since the Civil War but I've always wanted to brush up on my Feudal Era swordsmanship. Besides…I favor the challenging, kicking and screaming option. More or less the fate of Hamato Yoshi."

"Which was?"

"Electrocution and live disemboweling." he finally sheathed the lone katana after doing practice sweeps he'd observed from the Guardians protecting the Utroms. A bit rusty, as it was not his forte, a turtle neck was more than good enough to practice on. Though it would be a pity. Bishop gazed around the room, pleased to hear the slightest echo of his devious plans. It felt good just to hear his cunning and know that the very people he was 'protecting' at the moment were right in his hands. In danger's way.

"What?"

"What, sir?"

"Shut up. Something's on!" he saw the red light and cursed. Of _course_! Michelangelo! "That _idiot_!" he scowled. Bishop recalled the bored, tilt-a-whirl spinning of the microphone and childish mashing of buttons with his fat, green fingers. Bishop quickly cut the live stream and killed the recording segment, hoping the deletion he'd just performed cut the transmission that would wind up in the Shredder's communication room.

Well, it was impossible for him to hold all the cards and con _everyone_, right? It was disappointing but amusing. Now the game was fun again. "Resume your patrol around the border. Call in Kafka and Renolds, I need bodies to watch Slash when I let him out tonight."

"Sir, yes sir!" the lieutenant saluted respectfully.

"And keep your weapons on you. I'm not sure how stable he is outside of his habitat. Don't let the other turtles see them or you might not live to see tomorrow."

"Rodger that, sir. And what do we do if they _do _see us?"

"Render them unconscious. I'll find a way to deal with them. I'm really liking the cage idea. The best way to kill your enemy is to take the thing they care about most."

"So are we killing the human couple?"

"Negative. They'll live. The turtles can play hero and save them when Shredder comes knocking. All I need is a distraction long enough…_good _enough to let the Foot get Maeleyn and get out."

"Are you sure your adversary won't try to take more than what he's been granted?"

"No," Bishop turned to the lieutenant again with a straight face of slight rage. Really, how stupid could his help get? It seems all the good ones went too fast. Camilla wasn't even evil. She was a fat, good saint with equally squeaky-clean intentions.

"But that's why _you _are going to patrol the perimeter and make sure they don't take more than what they've been granted." the soldier blinked at him. For a twenty year war vet serving the government it was obvious he still had the jarhead nature. "Go, now!" Bishop clapped his stern hands back to his side, clasped his hands behind his back and sighed hard. Keeping the turtles separate would be hard. He'd only be able to activate the lock-down mechanism when April wasn't with Maeleyn and whenever she wasn't with the others.

"I guess I'll switch the sleeping arrangements," he mumbled. "Camilla will sleep next to Maeleyn in the corridor connected to the north wall." Bishop ran a hand through his black hair, surprised it wasn't falling out. "Then I can have a testimony to how she reacts at night with the drug in her system."


	16. Chapter 16

Enigma

**AN: Two new reviews, thank you very much! One from **FeatherGirl13 **on chapter fifteen, and the other from a brand new reader catching up on the saga, **SirenSerenade **who commented on chapter thirteen. Thank you both very much! I've almost gotten reviews to match the number of chapters, and that's surprising but I'm glad all of you are enjoying it! We might just make it into the twenties, yay! Just to separate the phone texts from Rilien's computer-made speech, in the event they mesh together in a future chapter phone texting will be **underlined **and Rilien's speech will stay in **bold**.**

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* * *

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The following three days the group spent under Bishop's suspiciously nice, protective care Don noticed something different. It astonished him, really, something new every day. However it worried him. He felt almost like the people that got invited to a wholesome dinner at a nice manner only to turn into wild game the second the meal was done, courtesy of a secretly elegant, crazy mastermind. Bishop had them all in a situation where he could easily pick them off, and that flustered him to no end.

If the others cared they weren't showing it. Don could tell Leo was tense and cautious most of all. Raph…not so much, maybe a little, but it was being managed by Maeleyn. At least…he thought it was; he recalled an odd thumping, clunking sound late the other night and figured his elder brother had snuck off to be with her. It fit his personality, anyways.

Mikey…Mikey was paranoid. He fell into the 'secret government alien base isolation spells DOOM!' plot and looked at every inanimate object like it was going to eat him. Nothing too out of the usual for the family, their personalities were intact despite the foreign environment and constant presence of high concern on account of being in the hands of their enemy. But in a way…Bishop was the lesser of two evils. Don thought that was both sad to say and soon realized that their 'evil' scale had a pretty high number just to set off the panic. Don watched Maeleyn closely again at the breakfast table as Camilla fixed the traditional breakfast foods most American families enjoyed: eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, the works.

Casey and Rilien were happy to finish what leftovers remained once everyone had their fill. Don mentally cursed as he blinked; that small timeframe of a second was all that was needed in order for Maeleyn to look normal. Being the family doctor he noticed it wasn't normal, often checking his brothers' eyes to see whether or not they'd incurred a concussion after a hard landing or fight. He'd only started seeing the changes yesterday but it was definitely there; he wasn't going crazy. Since her eyes were usually dark he wasn't surprise he'd only noticed it yesterday but something was definitely _wrong _with Maeleyn.

Her pupils were dilated to the point where she nearly looked doe-eyed. Then, in a blink, it was gone. It made the genius' skin crawl. Pupils didn't do that for no apparent reason. Her room wasn't _that _dark where coming in to the kitchen light would cause such a strong reaction; if anything she'd be accustomed to the less-brighter lights outside of the kitchen area and then experience a minor contraction of the pupils before sitting down, by then her eyes would've adjusted.

He was beginning to suspect the worst, and that troubled them. They were all with Bishop now, and it was obvious who he was targeting first. To keep up appearances around Camille he finished his food, but as soon as everyone had finished and dispersed to find something accommodating in the governmental stronghold he pulled Raph aside determinedly with a set hand, a way to speak without words that whatever he had on his mind was serious. Raph picked the hand off his shoulder like it was a banana peel and finally looked at Don who looked to be ate up with goose bumps. Just the idea chilled him to the bone, because it was happening while they all slept and no one knew about it.

It was right under their noses.

"Has Maeleyn been acting odd?"

"She's been moody but she's alright." Raph shrugged, kind of irritated Don would pull him aside for some stupid question. He figured the genius had found something incriminating, cool, that Raph could bring to Master Splinter and Leo and finally say 'Can I hit him now?' with successful results. It was no lie Raph didn't like staying so close to Bishop either; it felt like being a wounded sheep in the lion's den.

"No, I mean has she been doing anything _odd_. Give me details Raph, this is important. Any mood swings, any extra blinking? Momentary confusion?" Raph crossed his arms, rather cranky. He wouldn't be too cranky if Maeleyn hadn't been so sporadic in her own attitude yesterday. One minute she's cuddling up to him, nuzzling him in what they dubbed 'their' room, and the next she's marching away from him, saying she can't stand the smell of him. He knew for a fact-especially since they weren't being forced to live in the sewers at the moment-he didn't stink; Camilla had shown them an on-base shower that the humans used after doing a round of patrolling the outer perimeters. He smelled quite clean, actually. When she meant she couldn't stand the smell of him she'd meant it on a pheromone based level; maybe she was getting her mutated period or something.

"How the hell should I know? We all blink, Don. I think you're comin' out of your shell like Mike. Just cool it, okay? If Bishop wanted to do somethin' to us he would've done it already. Do I like this shit myself? No. Just take it easy or you're gonna end up hurtin' yourself bein' all jumpy and shit."

"Thanks for the sweet concern," Don rolled his eyes.

"Look, dude, I told you she's been moody. That's about it for her; you know Maeleyn's not too emotional. She's pretty tough; she'll let you know when you piss her off." Raph told him.

"Has she…has she been bleeding?" having April as a female friend, a sister, and a part-time houseguest when not yet quite on her feet the boys had quickly been introduced to the joys human females experience. Among them mood swings, bitchiness, fatigue, bizarre bleeding, bloating, and cramps. His elder brother nearly blushed when questioned. What the hell did Don think they did? Well, obviously he had an idea, but still!

What kind of boyfriend wanted to tell someone-his little brother no less-what was going on down there with his girlfriend? Certainly not him. "No, she ain't been bleeding. What are you, sick? Jesus, Don. I mean, really bro?"

"I wasn't asking with ill intentions Raph," Don finally snapped back. Obviously irritation was going in a domino effect now. The question he couldn't answer was how Maeleyn attained it. Was this her way of dealing with the paranoia of being in Bishop's stronghold? It was too radical of a mood change for him to accept as logical though, especially such a transition in the span of three days.

"Then there I can rule out a period…" Don left his brother standing there, continuing to talk to himself as he walked away, retracing the steps he'd taken two days ago when finding the second interesting thing since arriving at the base. Tracks. Tracks in the floor; the floor was linoleum so rightly that type of floor wouldn't _need _tracks for any reason. He'd almost missed it due to the actual surface of the linoleum being raised like tile, but he'd felt the different texture under the tip of his toe moving through the expanse of the north hall. The way the base was designed was really just poor in the natural engineer's opinion.

One large, well guarded base was essentially split into two still large sections, joined by a hallway at the north wall. On the left half, the half where the boys slept, appeared to be the 'essentials' area where such rooms as the kitchen, bathroom, and other old, now abandoned, living quarters used to be. He was beginning to think he should check more along the right half of the building. Don slipped off into the right half of the building, keeping his ears open and stepping with a light foot.

The sense that something was wrong was very insistent. Almost gnawing at him, driving him insane! Into the communications room he went, wanting to observe Bishop's monitoring on April's place. Maybe they could go back now, and not have to worry about being here. Something else, however, the rock in his gut, told him otherwise.

Easing himself silently into the main black swivel chair Don watched the various screens depict April's house, in intense concentration. He sat there for nearly an hour before realizing it. True he nodded off and that's why he may not have seen it right away but he quickly realized it. The timestamp in the bottom of the frame that made the camera footage look authentic was replaying every twenty minutes or so. He jumped up, nearly beside himself as his heart began to flip and skitter inside his chest.

They were all sitting ducks! April's house was no longer infested with Foot, nor had it been, probably, for the past three days! Bishop had rigged the footage to convince them to stay. This spoke volumes to the genius. So…what was he doing then, that was so important to convince them to stay?

Obviously he was buying time for something, but what? How bad was it? "I need to talk to Leo…" Don muttered under his breath.

"Hey, what are you doing in here?" Don fought the urge to jump, or whip out his bo. Lieutenant Rodgers had just come from patrolling the outside, his shift done for the morning. This trained man didn't ease up on his nasty looks, either. While the other patrolling basemen had been told to watch out for the bipedal animals, and not to blatantly show their weapons in vicious means to them, they had not been told where they could and could not go. _This one must be that nerdy one he wanted to give to NASA_, thought Rodgers as he looked Donatello up and down a brief second before giving a sharp nod towards the door.

Don obeyed, walking out, trying his hardest not to get up and just _run _from the room. Now that he knew what he knew escaping would be hard, and being calm around his family would be hard. Hell-he never even thought he'd think this-the family being 'the family' would be hard now that they had evidence not to trust the man who claimed to be giving them a place to hide. Raphael was gone from where he'd last been with Don when Don made his rounds again, peeking and checking on where everyone was.

To his relief, and perhaps unknown on their part, Leo and Splinter were easily discouraging ideas of attack at least on themselves as they chaotically practiced hand-to-hand in a flurry of movements that would surely confuse even these base-trained defenses. Mikey was watching them. Don-even though he hated it, assuming meant nothing, and was highly unfounded, not to mention a bad way to go because it's a shot in the dark-assumed Raphael was with Maeleyn. He knew his brother could protect her, or, if she was being moody as Raph said, Maeleyn could protect herself.

April and Casey those two he didn't see. Don could easily bet, though, if they weren't off doing…couple…activities, April would be boredly commenting on the endlessness of Casey's stomach. That was Goliath's way of showing off in front of her, besides acting generally tough and stupid_. Rilien probably didn't raise much chaos on Bishop's radar as far as suspicion_; Don tried to think systematically, _because he's still recovering_. Camilla took to Rilien almost like an angel, constantly feeding the still-skinny scientist and making him all sorts of healthy shakes to drink so he could get his strength back up.

He tried to take his mind off of what he'd figured out; the video reel had teased him since the day after their arrival. At that time he hadn't had enough time to fully sit down and observe it but the instant he looked at it something looked off. The shadows hadn't seemed to move like people then, more or less like the people were moving identically to one another. Don sat next to his little brother and watched their father and eldest brother workout. The last thing he needed to do was worry Mikey, or Splinter.

He'd tell Leo later; Leo would know what to do.

* * *

Maeleyn was pretty irritable. Raphael was grumpy because apparently _she _was grumpy, or so he said. She actually didn't remember being grumpy at all. Hell, she didn't even remember sleeping soundly last night, but she must've. Only a good sleep could make her feel so alive and rejuvenated.

Then again, maybe she didn't sleep so well. Maeleyn felt drowsy almost as soon as she'd gotten done thinking she'd slept alright, and her irritation from Raph being irritated didn't help her attempt to sleep. She came upon him near noontime having a sparring session with Leo. "I don't particularly like your attitude today," she heard Leo hiss as he blocked a right-hand punch from his little brother. "If you have something going on between you and Maeleyn don't drag everyone else down in it. This is why we don't need relationships Raph, we're not ready."

"Go ahead Leo, take it a step further, I know you want to! Say it, _say _it. What you want to say is _I'm _not ready. And you know what? Maeleyn _is _part of the family unless you forgot about her bandana. 'Sides, it ain't nothin' to do with her. "

"What?" Leo rolled his eyes, fluidly ducking a kick, "let me guess, it's me again?"

"Let's tell Bishop to cut you open and see why you're suddenly psychic. Maybe you've got something freaky going on there…"

"RAPHAEL!" Splinter barked, cracking the bottom of his cane across the floor. Neither brother flinched, locked hand-in-hand for a power struggle. The little brother knew he was being chastised but really didn't care. Right now he needed to get some stress off and out of his body, and fighting with Leo was the only way he knew how. Since talking to Don Raphael had started to think differently. Did he think she was on something, or that Bishop had given her something?

He wouldn't put it past him. Raphael was worried that touching her, or being intimate with her, might be bad for whatever it was that she was going through. That really hurt him; part of him wanted to ask if she was okay, and the other half wanted to be distant so he could watch and guard efficiently, as he should be able to. Raph couldn't figure out which would be better, in the long run, for her. Maeleyn was the type of girl not to ask much, not too verbal unless she wanted to be, she just more or less snuck up on him and wanted to hang out, to have some physical time to be sated and content.

"Who else actually sticks his big beak into everyone's business?" the new voice asked and Raphael finally pushed Leo back, untangling himself from his brother to turn and look at a scowling, tired Maeleyn. Apparently she was about to exercise her bitchiness on Leo. Leo just breathed a small sigh, like he was obligated to stand there and listen, as he twirled the free katana he possessed one time and slid it back into its sheath again.

"Look," as usual Leo tried to exercise his dominance as the "eldest" while trying to appease everyone. Maeleyn especially since she was such a new member of the family, and, at the same time, so foreign. They didn't generally accept houseguests in the way they had Maeleyn. "I think we're all just a little cranky from being cooped up here, so why don't we just agree to dis-"

"A little cranky? A _little _cranky?" Maeleyn stomped her foot, tail swishing side to side. It whipped and snapped sharply, showing she was agitated. "We haven't been allowed outside in _three _days. We had more freedom back home, and it's worse because our enemy is the one dictating where we can go. It's like a fucking horror movie; just no one's died yet!"

"Aw jeez…" Raph grumped, giving a huff, "have you been talking to Mikey again?"

"That doesn't matter, I happen to think this fits the theme of a horror movie!" she jabbed a finger near Raph's face which he just brushed aside like a fly. He wouldn't say it but she was foxy when she was angry. Her eyes gleamed, her lip curled up in a tight pout, chest thrust forward in the determined way of hers. She embodied resilience and rage.

"_Niños_, _niños_ I can hear the echoes from the kitchen! Very noisy, I'm sure you're disrupting some of the other workers. What's going on?" Camilla asked as she looked at the group. Splinter and Leo's _whump-whump-whump _sparring sounds she could handle. The growling, snarling yells the animal people could emit, not so much. Splinter smiled slightly; glad to finally have some silence without having to intervene for once. All of them-Leo, Raphael, and Maeleyn-looked like children caught with their hand in a cookie jar before supper.

"Sorry." Leo frowned, glancing in half-force at Raphael. He was not the only one to blame and therefore he should not be the only one to apologize!

"Sorry…" Raph more or less shrugged. Camilla was too nice about it for him to feel guilty. She didn't even look truly disturbed. Maybe Bishop made a lot of noise. He paused in his thought process. Or maybe he _made _something that made a lot of noise. Like animals…

"I'm sorry, Camilla. I think I'm just pissy because I'm tired."

"Why not go take an evening nap, _niña_?"

"I might," Maeleyn said as she rubbed her eyes. "It's very tempting."

"People in Spain do it regularly for brain rejuvenation so they can perform better when they wake up."

"I'll take a catnap then," Maeleyn decided with a small yawn. Trying to handle her emotions actually made her tired. On the one hand she had Raph acting like a pouty child, on the other she was seriously freaked out by not being able to remember sleeping. Instead of going to her designated room where the women slept she moved to the large, polished bench that Don and Mike had once been occupying before they jumped up, ensnared in the usual tension Raph and Leo brought when in a fight. She pulled her tail up near her left leg and folded her arms under her head, letting her hair fall over her eyes.

Camilla turned away with a crooked frown. Don's red flag started going off again. What was with the preference of the bedroom area? Was it because it was farther away from the main group? Whatever the reason his suspicions were definitely being proved today, and that wasn't necessarily a good thing.

"I'll wake you up for dinner, how's that?" Raph compromised. He knew Maeleyn liked to sleep, and by the look of the bags under her eyes she would be using as much time as she could to sleep. He saw her lustrous hair nod back and forth and listened to the crinkle of the hair trapped between her arm and cheek rustle. "A'ight, sleep good." he rubbed his hand fondly across the back of her glossy tresses, and she nodded again. They left her alone after that, knowing better (again, from April) than to wake a tired woman trying to sleep.

* * *

"My head…" Kier groaned, peeling his eyes open. His face was cold, bruised, and pulsing again. The ground beneath him hard, freezing, and smelling faintly of faded oil. It took a couple minutes for his eyes to adjust but he soon found himself staring at the back of a wooden wall clustered with tarp-draped objects. Slowly he pushed himself off the ground and went to investigate, dragging the large tarp off what was soon revealed to be two large crates.

The two crates appeared to be locked, only a thin slit for a key and Kier frowned. Guess there was no getting help from miscellaneous objects. He looked around again, trying to think of how hard it might be to escape. Enclosed in a large wooden storage house (or so he could guess it to be) there were a few missing shingles which sunlight slipped through and an entirely too-tiny window he wouldn't be able to squeeze through. It was the only thing _in _the room besides himself and the crates.

Anything of real value had been taken out long ago for probably the same reason this place was abandoned. Whether it was due to up-keep, location, or general budget he couldn't guess. He stooped with a small groan to pick up his phone, counting his blessings that Shredder may not have seen the phone on him. He flicked it open; the scratches on it indicating it had been tossed around with him.

No bars.

He cursed. Kier quickly went to analyzing every inch of the abandoned warehouse. An hour was wasted to meticulous curiosity as he maintained his pattern: take a step, check for signal. Eventually he wound up by the window, warmed by the sunshine heating the glass. Kier appreciated the tiny view of the outside world it gave him, and with great difficulty scooted one of the crates to the tiny window in order to stand and see out of it. The heated glass scalded his hand and he quickly drew it back, placing a hand above his brow to peek past the glare created on the window.

The docks…he was near the docks! Though he couldn't smell the salt of the sea the azure waves licking at the water-buried support posts were obvious. The tiny window cut off his view to the left but from what he could see on his right there was a boat in the harbor, someone's personal boat, as it wasn't decorated with large, plain letters indicating a U.S. ship. So there was a little bit of hope, then, if he could break out he'd have a way to get back to the Shredder and royally fuck him up for lying.

If he escaped, no, _when _he escaped, he'd have a way to get back to the headquarters. The headquarters itself was near water so he could go up the east side of Manhattan to get to it. Kier looked around for a third time, body swollen with hope. There had to be something in here to help him escape…

He ran his hands through his hair, raking up and fluffing up his tendrils wildly in though, basically making his head a bird's nest. His coarse hands floated down his neck and to his own shoulders to rub them. Kier paused, trailing his fingers back up to his neck. He turned his phone around in one hand, knowing he needn't have signal to take a picture.

_Click_! The phone was turned around again and he nearly dropped the phone in sheer horror. Not only did the Shredder lie to him, he had isolated him _and _planned on killing him off! No one would know he'd even been in the little shack. Enlarging the phone on his picture so he could read the numbers correctly Kier shivered, hoping now more than ever his training would get him out of this situation. Rose, if he had to guess, had fitted some sort of collar on him with a scrolling label, the phone had captured a warning, a live, ticking clock.

_You have 47 hours, forty minutes, and eight seconds until this collar explodes. _

There was nothing to calm him now. "I have to find signal," he breathed. As painstaking and panic-inducing as it was he retraced his two-step pattern, praying he'd missed a hot spot. If he could just get a message out! But who would he send it to? "Kirkland and Jeeters," he immediately decided. They were helping him find and shut down Shredder's security so maybe in doing that they could disable the collar!

He stopped at the window again, pressing the phone hopefully against the hot glass as it showed a flickering increase of signal power. "Shit…" hissed Kier. He was going to have to break that window. At least Shredder had left him with some dignity and provided his last set of clothes, albeit they were torn from Hun and Bishop knocking him around, and blood stained. Smart enough to know not to use his dominant hand (what if he needed to text instead of talk, with no food or water around this place who knew how good his voice would be in two days?) he bundled his left hand tightly in his shirt, and then his tougher jeans before standing on top of the box again.

It was cooler, standing in his boxers, he noted. The sunshine, although limited, compared with the general heat of the day and position of the shack, would make the heat a worthy opponent. He might just stay this way. Clothes were an easy sacrifice when compared to freedom and avoiding a heat stroke. While the building may have been abandoned the glass was solid, and his left hand was weaker than his right so it took a little longer to break the glass.

One punch, nothing but a rattle. Two, nothing, but he heard the little noises signaling some fade in the resistance. After five the same spot started to give, spider veins growing from the impact crater his third knuckle had made. On the ninth punch it shattered; as an instinct Kier shifted the phone to his bundled hand and stuck it out the window, listening for the built-in beep saying signal had been found.

_Doot-doot-do! _Relief swam in him. He breathed a sigh, laying his head down on his arm, and then he flinched, suddenly tingly. Kier cursed his ignorance, looking at the small rivulets of blood racing down his arm. _Great, now I have a risk of infection_, he thought. Kier took a picture as best he could, having memorized his second phone's buttons by now (he hadn't had that many in life, but knew the ones he had), and pulled his arm carefully back in.

The picture was good enough for them to see the threat, maybe not the timer, but he could clarify that in the caption. He sent it to Jeeters, knowing he would see it if it popped up on the security frequency. Every soldier knew the _Eagleton's _security frequency in case of emergencies or in the event they were stationed at a docking point so a fair warning could be initiated if suspicious play made itself evident. Fix this! he created the two words, wondering what else to say; he knew he couldn't make the message long. Trapped, no weapons. Locked in a shack. No water. No food. 47 hours, fifteen minutes, and thirty-nine seconds until collar detonation. Help.

_Doot-doot-do! _trumpeted the phone as he stuck it out passed the jagged teeth of glass still clinging to the wooden frame. He had a mind to punch them out so he wouldn't suffer any more lacerations, and hit the 'send' button. _Deet-didleet! _Kier smiled. That was the noise the phone made to confirm a sent text message. There was hope yet!

* * *

He looked around the room with his golden eyes ablaze, the chocolate undertone making a full accenting oval, acting as the outer band of color in his gaze. All sorts of smells met his nose now, and it certainly hadn't been anything like this until about four days ago. A small grunt of curiosity escaped him as he found the north hallway again by the explosion of feminine smell enticing his nostrils. "Bride…" he whispered, picking up his heavy feet and treading as quietly as possible through the corridor, peeking at the rooms that met him.

The one on the left didn't smell right, and neither did the one on the right. She was here somewhere…

He paused, crouching down on all fours to sniff at the crack in the next door. This room smelled like a male _and _a female. Strongly. Slash growled a mite, careful to keep his voice low, as he learned he had the ability to get very loud while on his own before getting moved to the larger room he possessed; the echoes hurt his ears. "My bride!" hissed the large turtle as he swatted at his own nose to get rid of the male scent, moving on with his clawed feet quietly scraping the floor.

This door was open, and smelled the strongest of females. He poked his large sea-green head in curiously, taking a whiff. Yes, definitely the room of the females. Slash didn't dare venture into any other hallways, or sections, but this one. Camilla was nice to do as Bishop told her, Bishop himself, and the men he employed often shot him with biting bullets that made him feel sleepy. He didn't like that.

All three women were asleep. He paused and sniffed each one like they were new, just to make sure they were indeed the same women. And he'd done it last night. Bishop had told him he was a bit OCD, but commented shortly after that he didn't care, that Slash probably couldn't comprehend him or remember. That wasn't true, Slash remembered things very well, eerily well, he just wasn't good with speech.

They went in the routine as he had last night, Camilla, then the sweet-smelling mutant hybrid he'd been waiting to arrive, smelling for days, and the redhead. It was a little different than last night so he had to be careful. Last night his Bride was looking at him with glossy, gorgeous eyes and sleep-tousled hair as if she'd waited on him. Tonight she was dead as a doornail in her sleep. Camilla had been roused instantly by the cold poke of his reptilian nose on her cheek.

"Slash," she hissed, "not tonight. Maeleyn can't take the drug more than one day, remember? Her body is still new, it might hurt it. Remember our talk?" he nodded. Camilla sat up, careful not to wake the other two women but apparently they were heavy sleepers. "Did Bishop let you out again?" he nodded again. Camilla scowled.

"He wasn't supposed to. You can look at her Slash but _don't _touch, okay?"

"I smell." said Slash in a compromising, almost innocent way as he gave Camilla another sniff to show his intentions. When Slash sniffed her Camilla stifled a giggle. It tickled, as his 'sniff' had the power of a tiny, cold vacuum. Be _muy tranquila_, Slash. Very quiet." Camilla held a finger up to her lips and Slash nodded. She did his diet when the others weren't around to be curious about where she was going, and given the fact she was catering to a group they no longer asked why she cooked large amounts of food.

It was assumed she cooked for the whole base, not one steroid-made mutant. Slash understood minor Spanish, having told Camilla quiet unintelligently he liked to hear it. More or less "Slash like to listen to _niño_." and it had taken her nearly an hour to realize he meant to say he liked listening to her speak Spanish, not hearing her call him niño. In fact, he hated to be called niño, he liked his given name. He waited for his nutritionist to go back to sleep, being very quiet as he stood there for about fifteen minutes, just staring at the three.

His Bride smelled sweet. Slash knew better than to disturb her covers, she wiggled already, and didn't like to be removed from the warm cocoon she'd made. Her skin was scaly near her shoulder on her back, but smooth and pore-less down the rest of her back. Enticing asparagus green flesh, and a long, pretty tail near his pretty Bride's round buttocks. He looked at the tattoo exposed on the arm curled near her pillow, **001**.

"One…for Slash." he whispered quietly, tracing a lone claw softly along the arch of her back where her spine lay, evoking a skin-jerking sensation from her; she rolled over with a grunt in response. Content for the night he moved past Camilla and on to the redhead. Now she was a curious one, for she smelled of human, sweet like a human female, and utterly sour like more turtle males. Was she a whore? An experiment Bishop had made to do interbreeding between the species?

He cocked his head to the left, observing her. She snored like a man, mouth wide open, one hand sprawled across her eyes, and the other hanging limp off the left side of the bed. Slash didn't like the sharp sound her snoring made. He didn't like most loud sounds, actually, usually surrounded by the peaceful scent of his beach-made room and the scent of salt and the breeze. The large turtle could only wait for the day when he would lay his Bride beneath his favorite palm tree and really make her his, but for now he could stand to visit her. Bishop said she would be coming to live with him soon, very soon.

The redhead had her feminine smell, lotion on her skin to make her smell like a coconut, and Slash curiously peeled back the covers. He'd never seen a naked _anything _before, and now that the creamy pale leg had kicked him in the side to hang off the right side of the bed, five red-painted toenails looking upward, he was curious as to how the rest of her looked. Slash drew the covers back more to analyze the creature.

Not his Bride, not as good looking as she, but this human looked nice. She had a shirt over her torso, it was ruffled, crumpled, and slightly above her hips from the wild shifting she did in sleep but the rest of her looked nice. Her legs were long and white, one sock on her left foot, her right one near the bottom of her bed. Hips hard and wide, a good thing, like he'd been taught in the anatomy books. She was a good choice to breed with, fertile, as was his Bride.

He gave a curious lick to her stomach, the coconut scent driving him crazy. Slash quickly drew back, sticking out his tongue in disgust. That did _not _taste like a coconut. He'd become quite addicted to the pale meat of the hard palm tree fruit, but her skin had lied. Humans could not yet be coconuts, apparently, but trick people into thinking they were.

She tricked him, at least.

He poked at her bellybutton, something his Bride appeared not to have. Not too much of one, like this woman had. Hers was a somewhat deep depression that he could poke his finger into. She giggled when he poked experimentally into the naval. Slash smiled slightly; that was a calm, low-decibel sound.

The large turtle cooed to her, much like he would coo to his own child or children soon. Bishop promised him that he would have a Bride and then he would have a child. He wasn't sure how long that would take but he'd get one, or so he'd been told. Churring to her Slash soon found poking her to be ridiculous, and opted to cover her back up. He was basically practicing for fatherhood, and his children would never be cold, so this human wouldn't either, despite her body stench telling of those other turtle men.

"Casey I told you to stop imitating Raph," she slurred, rolling over and slinging her right hand towards the left. "It's not your fault you suck at pool. Sore loser…" Slash stared at her. Who was Raph? And who was Casey? They must be her lovers, for she smelt of both species. The human stretched, rolled, and opened her emerald eyes. Slash backed up quickly, not expecting her to look at him and c_ertainly _not expecting her to make such a loud, awful noise!

"AHHH! AHHH! GET AWAY FROM ME, GET AWAY! CASEY! CA-SEEEEEY!"

"RAHHH!" Slash roared in response, what he usually did to drown out the noises he didn't like, and fled. He wasn't supposed to be seen by any of them except for Camilla, Bishop, and the on-base men. Maeleyn snapped up, hearing the shrill female scream, and watched with wide eyes as something heavy and fast zipped out of the room, heavy echoes fading swiftly from the room, and the corridor.

_That almost looked like a…no, no that's not possible! _Maeleyn thought, _the guys are the only turtles I know. Bishop couldn't have possibly made more. Rilien said that all of Shredder's experiments were either dead or shipped out. There couldn't have possibly been one to survive this long, even Gustav is dying! _

Somehow, maybe by cultured instinct or sheer good hearing Casey and the others ran into the female bedroom. "April, babe, what's wrong?" April felt violated and very afraid. The golden-centered eyes were piercing, very cold, and curious. The size of that thing had been massive! Almost like Raphael sitting on Casey's shoulders, and then some!

"I-I! It was so big, and it was just _staring _at me!"

"Did that thing _lick _you?" Casey pulled her shirt up and stared at the shiny saliva stripe on her pale skin.

"I don't _know_!" April cried, tears streaming down her face. "I just woke up and it was staring at me! I thought you were coming to sneak into bed with me, I guess that's why I was so desensitized to it until a little while ago." Casey flushed a short bit of crimson, wrapping his fiancée in his arms.

"Ape you sure you okay?" Mikey asked with great concern as he saw how shaken she was. Maeleyn moved over to her bed to sit with her, wondering if what she had seen would be any help. After all, she hadn't seen a face, just a shape.

"No! No I'm not okay!" April nearly screamed. "We're right in the hands of our enemy and something huge is running around at night, how can I be okay? Especially knowing it's been in here?"

"Be still, _novio_, it's alright."

"Don't you call me 'sweetheart' you fat, Spanish shrew!" screeched April as she jumped up angrily and pointed an accusing finger at Camilla. Camilla was taken aback by the harsh words of Ms. O'Neil, and surprised she knew Spanish. "You knew about this, didn't you? Bishop _is _doing some underhanded work!"

The fight quickly escalated to the two Spanish-speaking women fighting in the Spanish tongue. The turtles could only watch April's vicious, gesterous movements and listen to her sharp tone, unsure of what either woman was saying. "What's going on here?" Bishop cut the lights on, causing everyone to wince and cry out at the sudden contrast of surrounding.

"Mr. Bishop, she saw him…" the two government bodies exchanged looks of acknowledgement, causing the in-the-dark crew of usual heroes to do the same. Something was fishy here.

"Then I guess we have nothing to do but take immediate action." Bishop shrugged, and Don noticed in a panic at gun-wielding men filing in to either side of him. It was too small a room to escape, but Bishop was going to back them in to a corner. Leo saw it, too, and instantly grabbed his katanas before Bishop acted.

"What I want is immediate answers, you jerk, and I want 'em now" brandishing his fist Casey got up close and personal to Bishop. The man just smirked.

"Babe, come over here." Raph was highly uneasy and moved to grab Maeleyn, every instinct instilled by his ninjitsu training and the dangers they fought on the Manhattan street going crazy. No one needed to say it. Bishop was bad news, and he reeked of the _worst _news at the moment. Smoke plumed into the room at a fast rate, a hiss cuing it. The men raised their guns, the last thing any of them could see before the cloud rose, and the sound of triggers being pulled sounded.

Smoke stung their eyes and dried their throats. Raph clutched Maeleyn hard, instinctively turning his back to expose the hard shell to his enemies. He could feel the tranquilizers, whatever they were using, sink in uselessly but he felt other sharp bites grazing his arms, and a few even sunk into his calves. The second-eldest wondered how Leo was doing, his ears tuned to the sound of many _pings! _of deflection but Bishop must've known Leo wouldn't have a wide range in which to protect himself on top of not being able to see correctly. Raphael held on to his girlfriend tighter, unsure of what would happen.

"Ugh…" the smoke was dark but he couldn't tell if it was dissipating or not. Everything was starting to look dark.

"Raph? RAPH!" Maeleyn tried to hold him up, to slow his fall, but it was obvious his body couldn't take any more shots. His strong bicep slipped through her claws at last and she let him sink as painlessly as possible to the floor. He was too heavy to move. "Raph, say something! Raph!"

"Get them to the cages, the shots won't last for long." she growled at the men coming to pick up Raph, others already collecting to half-drag the others. They hadn't shot her down like expected. She…she had Raph to think for that, to protect.

"Get away from him!" Maeleyn snapped, clicking her teeth together menacingly as one hand snapped out and raked Bishop across the face. She froze. That wasn't blood-oozing flesh…it looked…almost metallic. The man didn't falter.

"See you shortly, Ms. Spector." Bishop turned up the intensity of the tranquilizer and almost fired.

"Don't!" Camilla called out, and Maeleyn turned, like Bishop to see why. Camilla had an empty needle in her hand, the end tipped with blood. "I got her in the back…"

"With what?" Bishop asked as Maeleyn collapsed to the floor, eerily still.

"Liquid melatonin so she won't be out for long, but it works fast."

"Good, help me get her ready to visit Slash. Is he in the right room?"

"Yes sir."

"Good."

"Rodgers, get Alvaro, Dalton, and Felix on the double. I'll need help moving these cages to a new room."

"Which room, sir?" asked Lieutenant Rodgers as he fixed the gun back over his back. Bishop smirked.

"Slash's room. They've got a show to watch. I'll need some extra protection."

"Rodger that, sir." Rodgers picked the walkie-talkie from his belt and began calling for the other three operatives. If Bishop was calling four men into _Slash's _room something big must be going on. _This is it, _thought Rodgers rather apocalyptically, _it's the end…we're done._


	17. Chapter 17

Enigma

**AN: Thanks to **Eskimo-Otter **(a.k.a once** FeatherGirl13**) on the review to chapter sixteen. I couldn't get this up the day I started it because I had to go to work but here it is now! We're super-close to the ending guys; enjoy the rest of the ride! WARNING: **_**THREE DEATHS IN THIS CHAPTER.**_

Raph's vision was roused by the consistent pulse of pain in his neck, and his legs, and his skull. _Must've been where the darts hit, _he thought as he finally pulled his eyes open, feeling as if he'd just hefted a lazy, purposely-limp Mikey off the couch. The others were slowly recovering, too. Leo was growling at his captors, trying to wiggle his shoulders free so one of his katana holsters could slip down near the crook of his arm to grab one of his weapons. Mikey was having better luck, already having to be approach from the back so more of Bishop's men could hold his shell, the two at his sides finding it hard to hold down the elusive younger brother that appeared to have multiple ways to slip out of their hands. A talent cultured by having older brothers and the need to escape after self-caused mayhem.

Don wasn't talking, that Raph expected. He was planning. He could see the conniving light in his little brother's brown eyes, how the darted around between his captors, their armed bodies, and what exits the room held. The genius was cooking up something, but twitched nervously in the general straining of being forcibly led, it was obvious to his other brothers Don's plan would need more muscle than he possessed alone to set his plan into action. Splinter went calmly, the only hint of agitation about him spotted in his ears, how far back and down-pressed they were towards the back of his furry head, and the twitch of his whiskers.

After analyzing his family Raph looked for their three human friends. Camilla looked nearly dejected that she had assisted in such a plot, maybe not knowing this whole time the true purpose of Bishop's 'nice' actions, looked at the others with a solemn pout, dressed in her employee outfit. Raph hated those sterile white coats. It reminded him of Stockman trying to kill them all back when they first met April, it reminded him of the Foot genetics lab that had turned Quarry and Stonebiter into mutants that could only live normally under the Crystal Moon, and it reminded him of just bad scientists in general - the ones that are depicted as crackpot-crazy in the sci-fi movies. _Clang! _he swiveled his head sharply, staring under the arm of the broad man behind him to see Bishop locking Mikey in a cage low to the ground; not good for height but good on length, with his nunchucks dangling from a hand.

Leonardo's swords and Donatello's bo had been assumed by the two men locking up the cages next to Mikey's. Raph's rage meter exploded, beyond repair, behind his exterior. They dared to cage his family? Like animals? They were the animals, not them! Look at what they had done! "Back the hell up from my bros, Bishop, or I'm gonna beat your ass."

Bishop nodded to the man holding Raphael. Instinctively the turtle grabbed for the hilt of his sais, knowing the man was supposed to disarm him. The men that had locked his brothers and father up (he was a little late on the simultaneous lock-in, Raph noticed he came from outside the room in quite a hurry, perhaps from a long distance) jumped into action. It took six men and one gun held by Bishop pointed between his eyes for the turtle to relent his steely grip and release his sais. "You don't get a cage yet. I have a surprise for you, Raphael."

"Gee, what makes me so special?" Raphael asked in a pissy manner as he glared at the agent that had finally pulled himself up and put the gun away. It wasn't necessary as of right now.

"That girl right there and how you feel about her." Bishop pointed past him, causing Raphael to turn and glower at the large glass cage. Why didn't he realize it before? This wasn't an exercise room that he and Maeleyn had found earlier! It was a turtle habitat! One of Bishop's underlings laid the stirring Maeleyn on the warm beach sand beneath the large palm tree occupying the bottom right corner.

"Hold him." men assumed his thick arms once again and the cacophony of the alarms, bells, and whistles of warning resounded in his head. They were bringing something else into the room. Camilla gave a low whistle, drawing two fingers out from beneath her lips as the call finished as she personally held open the transparent glass door to the cage decorated to house a very big turtle. His heart leapt high in his chest and his mouth dried. Raphael began to shake against his will, scared for his girlfriend, as he set his eyes on Slash.

"Looks like you're not the only mutated turtles anymore, right?" Bishop seemed to jab conversationally in glee. "What you're looking at, gentlemen, is the first steroid-based mutation. Slash, say hello."

The large turtle turned his head and looked at the short red-wearing turtle being held by so many men. Why was he in here again? His eyes turned from the general direction of Camille and slid slowly across the extra people in his room; there were never usually this many people to watch what he did. He wrinkled his nose; that smelly male turtle. The one the redheaded human smelled of and his Bride, even worse.

"Bride!" Slash completely disregarded Bishop's order and walked around the side to see how pretty she looked under his palm tree through the transparent glass. This is just what he wanted!

"_Bride_? I'm sorry did you just say _bride_? Guess they didn't tell you pal but she's not on the market." Slash flinched. That smaller turtle had a loud, sharp voice. Deep, gruff voice but high, bold volume. He gave a small roar in response, as the turtle wasn't being painfully loud, and narrowed his eyes in wait to see if the turtle would get louder, move, or stay quiet. _He _was the big turtle around here, not that mouthy little red one.

Slash wanted to prove to this other male he'd be taking the prize, not him. He wouldn't bother with him. The thing that would piss his adversary off most would be to go straight to the one he was trying to defend. Yes, that was nice, it was a good plan. "'Ey, I'm talkin' to you!" Raph shouted to Slash as he began to trudge confidently towards the glass cube where Maeleyn was just getting to her feet.

"You think you're so big and bad? Well you ain't so great if you walk away from a fight. Fight like a turtle you half-brain! Let's go back to our roots, huh?" Raph gave no warning and broke away from the men that held him, darting straight for Slash.

"Raph, no!" Leo cried from his cage, identical to Michelangelo's, "you don't know how he's different!"

"Get 'im Raphie! You can do it!"

"Watch out for his claws, Raph. If they've simulated mating season he's going to be extremely feral!"

Slash's head snapped back and he growled, rubbing the left side of his face. That little turtle punched him! He swiveled and jutted his chin out, growling again, flexing his claws. Raph gave a growl of his own, putting his fists up in a defensive stance. The larger turtle flung out his right arm and sent Raph sailing across the room, claw marks already oozing blood from where Slash had made contact with his skin.

"Get up Raph, he's heading for the cage!"

"Go on in, _niño, _she's waiting on you."

He'd collided with the far-end wall and, frankly, the impact wasn't helping the pulsing pain caused by the darts. Raph drew his aching head up at Don's warning. _I have to…get to her; _the spots came and went in his vision. Without his sais this was hardly a fair fight. His vision cleared and Raph stood up, ready to try again; he kept an eye on his brothers and his enemies as he ran.

"Raph, duck!" he moved his head, feeling something whizz past it. The metallic ricochet confirmed his suspicions. They were no longer shooting to tranquilize. They were shooting to kill.

"He's extraneous now. Shredder's first mutant is already being made." _No! _He couldn't hear a damn thing and he wondered if that's what scared him. The sight would probably never leave him. Raph felt sick to his stomach. Slash, going up and down. Up and down. Under the palm tree.

Maeleyn crying. Slash must've been rough with her, too. She threw her hand up to the glass wall facing her, trying to keep her hand up and show him she was still cognizant, but Slash grabbed her arm and forced it down. He was in control, and wanted full submission.

The bloody handprint leaked weak drops racing down the side of the glass and Raph felt bile shoot up his throat. His natural reaction to bend down as he vomited actually saved him. An airy gasp echoed ahead and Raph looked up. Blood oozed from a tiny hole in her chest. So his armed perpetrator must've been aiming from behind, meaning ambush. Though muted by the glass cage Raph could see Slash distracted, slamming himself into the locked glass, his mouth open wide in another roar.

"Dude! You just killed your own worker!" Mikey cried incredulously as the blood slowly pooled out from beneath her body. Bishop scowled. Camilla wasn't supposed to have been shot, but she'd been staying by the cage to make sure Raphael couldn't spring Maeleyn until Slash was done. Dmitry Alvaro wasn't supposed to have shot her, either, he was supposed to be sedating the turtles, or at least trying to put Raph in his cage. He'd been out long enough.

The spider veins on the glass finally grew large, and the resistance, little. A spray of glass littered down from the sky and skittered across the floor, creating a light tinkling sound that eased the harshness of the gunfire that had just occurred. Slash gave a mighty roar, brandishing his claws again as he beat down the other two walls of his cage, the last built into the wall. He would make the playing field dangerous for those who would dare take away Camilla. To Slash Camilla was like his mother; she fed him, took care of him, and taught him her native tongue, just like a mother passing down traditions to her children.

"You pay!" he cried, turning sharply to the men lined up by the cages with their guns pointed at him. He hated that sound. Slash knocked them down like bowling pins, throwing their guns this way and that until they smashed into little pieces. One gun underfoot and one man sailing through the air Slash breathed hard, surveying his handiwork. Blood splatter colored his form, heavy on his claws and across his face where the men had tried to throw their arms up and cover themselves, or shoot him, and he'd effectively annihilated them.

"I think I'm going to hurl…" Mikey groaned from his cage. Slash had torn two men in half and pitched the parts like toys. Entrails and blood decorated the east wall. The smell of blood was undeniable, a heavy iron scent in the air.

"R-Raph…" Maeleyn couldn't help but cry. She felt it weak to do so but appropriate, definitely appropriate for what she'd just gone through. Her thighs hurt, and what would've been her vagina, had she still kept a human body, felt nearly ripped apart with pain. The glass crunched beneath her feet and she collapsed, unable to support herself after undergoing such pain. Slash was…she shuddered…there was no way she couldn't have suffered some internal damage at the penetration.

"Maeleyn…Maeleyn!" Raph disregarded the minute cuts occurring under his feet and ran to her. The smell of blood consumed her. If not having to watch what she'd suffered through he wouldn't be able to tell what blood was her and what blood came from the soldiers. "Don't move, babe, I got you." she was like a china doll. A broken china doll.

"I feel sick," she whispered. "I…Raph I'm sorry. I didn't want-"

"I know you didn't. You think anything wants to get with ugly over there?" He jabbed a thumb at what looked to be a highly agitated and distracted Slash. Raph was half-hoping Slash would break his brother's cages as he stomped and swung his large arms around. "Here, stay right there, alright?" he tucked Maeleyn behind Splinter's cage.

She nodded weakly, draping an arm across her abdomen. Splinter sniffed. "My son, how badly is she bleeding? I smell much iron in the air."

"I…I…" Raph finally took the time to look her over. She looked terrible, now that he'd succeeded in getting her away from her rapist. "She's…shit. She's all beat up to hell." Don had lectured them all long ago via _National Geographics_ and the internet the natural ways they would try to court people. And said ways on how to control the natural instinct; it appeared Slash could've used that lesson. Or they should've taught it to Maeleyn.

Her face was bruised and had six or so lacerations from his claws. Turtles tended to pat the face of their intended mate while chasing after them. Slash's 'pat' must've been a little strong, or so it appeared. Her skin was tender, dark, and flaking where Slash's plastron had rubbed her unprotected back during copulation. Her shell was barely clinging to her back, perhaps now only a quarter in tact.

"Raph, grab something, now!" Leo cried as Bishop flew past him and Raph's eyes instantly jumped to the floor. His brothers' weapons scattered haphazardly on the ground, but not his. _Bishop must still have them, _he thought. Without hesitation he snatched up Leo's katanas, catching himself think for a brief moment, _wow, never thought I'd hold these_, as Slash continued to make his rounds and strike anyone who still stood.

"Yeah, c'mon ugly! I'm the one you want, right here!" he twirled the katana in a lazy circle. Leo's weapons were longer than his, the spin was still easy since he was used to also handling steel weapons, but the force needed to keep a longer weapon spinning was odd. Slash lowered his head and charged. Raph put the katanas up in the signature 'x' position he'd seen Leo take so many times to soften the oncoming force of a hefty blow. Seconds before Slash could completely bowl him over Raph struck out and drove the katana in his right hand into his opponent.

Slash reared back, blood gushing thickly from the wound, spilling around the impaled katana. "Aw shell. Hey Leo, how do you get this thing out, man?"

"No!" Don cried from his cage, gripping the bars, "Don't! You hit nerves. He won't be able to raise that arm!"

"So what do you want me to do, brainiac, lose both weapons? I need to finish this son of a bitch. Help me out here!"

"Sorry Raphael. Your brothers are a little busy." Bishop didn't race back over to the north wall where the cages were. He had the underlings put the cages in that spot for a reason. Peeling back a section of the wall where the temperature control was Bishop's fingers played swiftly along the motion-sensitive buttons. The floor began to shake and both Raph and Slash struggled to stand. Beneath the cages the floor began to split, revealing a platform identical in color that slowly began to lower the cages down into the hollow cabinet just now being seen.

Bishop had planned this all along. He was going to store them like animals, hide them away. "Bride!" Slash thundered across the room, not caring how clumsy he looked. She was going down with the cages, and he wasn't done with her yet. Maeleyn gave a sharp cry of pain as Slash 'batted' her away from the cage. The force behind the larger turtle was similar to a speeding semi truck.

"Get your mitts off of her, you hear me?" Raph snarled, swinging the last katana he had threateningly. Slash watched the cages descend lower, and Maeleyn roll across the floor until she stopped at last from the impact, groaning in pain. The large turtle hit his knees hard, separating the legs of his mate. Raph clenched the katana hard, with both large hands, and charged. He was not about to let those sounds become real, to happen again where he wouldn't be able to scrub these already fucked up memories from his mind.

"Mine!" Slash roared at him, erect turtle penis positioned at Maeleyn's entrance. He bared his teeth at his adversary. This was his defining moment. He would see his enemy fall. In the span of a blink his enemy had moved from in front of him to somewhere else. The large turtle paused, still holding down his squirming quarry.

"No," he heard a dark, gruff voice behind him. Slash turned with narrowed eyes, intent on either biting or ramming Raphael. "Mine." the steel gleamed beautifully in the florescent lights of the room. Blood exploded from the neck as it now proved vacant, pouring down the front of the massive terrapin's chest as the body began to shut down, unable to function without a brain. The angle of the lazy cut (but good considering katanas was not Raph's main weapon) caused Maeleyn to be splattered with blood, and Raphael to experience some blood backlash at the swing of the katana in his hand, his brother's weapon drenched with blood.

He could hear Maeleyn wheezing with tears and the sheer weight of Slash's dead body. Raph grabbed the limp shoulders of the turtle's body and heaved him off, his arms straining with the ridiculous weight of the creature. Maeleyn…poor Maeleyn. Slash had bruised her thighs, imprints of his large three-fingered hands evident on her thighs, thin lines of blood oozing out of puncture wounds. Raph gingerly slipped an arm around Maeleyn's bruised back and lifted her off the glass-covered floor, wincing as the glass embedded in his feet.

"S'alright," Raph whispered to her, nosing her cut face gently. "I got you." he licked the drying blood in an affectionate way, trying to ease the pain of his part-terrapin mate. Bishop finally turned around. Now, alone in the quiet with Maeleyn's womb believed to be full and the noisy Slash gone it was the perfect time to crush the hopes of the last male turtle standing. Maeleyn shuddered against Raph under the cold stare of Bishop; after the beating Slash gave her during and prior to the rape she didn't feel so good.

Sick, cold, dizzy. Wishing she could forget it all. "Bring my brothers back up here, Bishop." Raph gave Maeleyn Leo's katana to hold. She was probably mad, jaded, and wounded enough for the both of them to willingly cut this menace in half, even in her current state. He just smiled.

"I think not, Raphael. But you can join them if you like…"

"Your little soldiers are dead, and so is your big pet. I either go through you to get to my family or you comply. It's your choice." Raphael set Maeleyn down on the floor after brushing away flecks of glass near the back wall where his family had been caged. He brandished the katana like he would his sai, pointing it directly at his enemy. "I may not know this weapon as well as my sais but I know it good enough to fuck you up." promised the second-eldest.

"How ironic. You face me and yet I have your weapons. Keep your brother's, they can be a memoir." Bishop watched the eyes of his enemy narrow at the statement. He drew back with his familiar cold smile. "I'm sorry, Raphael," apologized the agent. "Did I touch a nerve? Do you not like hearing that I'll destroy your family? That I'll pick your brothers off one by one? I promise you can have family time before I eradicate you all. Just step into the cage…"

"I don't take orders, I give 'em." Raph charged at his enemy who'd yet to move. He was some sort of robot, Raph knew that much from the time Bishop had told them of seeing aliens on the civil war battle field. Bishop was fast, though, and Raph didn't expect him to be _that _fast. With a hiss he retracted his muscled leg from the botched round house kick. Of course…something cliché like Bishop having to be made of metal had to happen, as per turtle luck.

Anything else for bones would've caused him to fall like a normal human. He ducked a straightforward punch and groaned as Bishop kneed him in the gut. Trying to block his blows would only hurt him, and even if he did have some regenerative properties he couldn't heal that fast."Okay," Bishop shrugged after kneeing him once again as Raphael finally found the air to stand, "maybe you won't join your brothers. I can make do with five freaks." the stolen katana gleamed above his enemy's head. Bishop was going to off him right here, right now, in seconds.

Centimeters from his head the katana paused, and Raphael quickly scuttled back. What made Bishop stop? He looked up to see his enemy looking around, scouting, listening, like a prairie dog. "What's that sound?" Bishop whispered to himself. Raphael, though his heart was in his ears, paused to listen too. His eyes never left his enemy.

_Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. BOOM! _Raph knew that whirring, mechanical sound. A large Foot mechbot lowered the roulette blaster arm and stood in the smoking doorway created by the devastating weapon hand. Bishop staggered back. The head of the robot opened, and Hun jumped out, the Shredder and two platoons of Foot ninja not too far behind, amassing and expanding from the hole in the wall. "Did you honestly think could betray me and get away with it? How d_are _you leave that wretched shop bare for me! And no less make off with those wretched turtles when you know what I had planned for them!"

Raphael didn't know who was the bigger threat. He backed away from the two, keeping himself at an angle so he could watch them both. This may just be a situation where his enemies would fight each other to the death. It was like Splinter had said once, "An enemy of my enemy is my friend." maybe it would work out in his favor. _Two power crazy guys goin' for the same thing? They definitely fit the whacko stereotype liable to fight each other to the death than a common enemy, _Raph thought.

His eyes fell to Maeleyn. Most of the blood on her body, in her wounds, was drying and he looked again to his two enemies. Did they know she was here? Obviously they knew his other brothers weren't in the room but did Shredder know about her? What Bishop had done to her?

"Where is Rilien, Bishop? And where's the runaway?"

"What about our deal?"

"You broke the deal by assisting Rilien out of the shop! I want Spector, now!"

"Unfortunately I can't speak for his whereabouts right now." _That's right…_Raph realized with wide eyes. Rilien hadn't been in the room! Only April and Casey, who'd probably been escorted out after Slash entered the room. Probably in effort to keep something as collateral on his family so they would bend to his twisted wants.

"Insolent fool!" scowled the Shredder. "Comb the building for Spector, now!" he cast out his hand and Foot members followed. For the moment it looked as if Raphael had been forgotten.

"Cease and desist, Ch'rell. You're under arrest courtesy of the Earth Protection Force."

"You fool," sneered the Shredder. "Did you not think I knew this was a ploy for your weak Earth forces to detain me? I will not go peaceably. I will not go at all!" Shredder raised his sharp gauntlet and swung downwards, his lethal weapon parried by Bishop's own sword.

"And what makes you think I'll let you walk away?" Bishop dared to ask. The Shredder gave an evil laugh, one Raphael had heard much too much when his old foe thought he won.

"Because the dead cannot stop me!" Raphael saw a blond scientist, a busty female who Mikey probably would've found attractive if not for her current employer and for the fact that she looked absolutely psycho, bring herself to the front of the line. Amongst the soldiers darting out to cover the large area of Bishop's base she went directly for contact, along with Hun. Why hadn't either one tried to get him, Raph wondered. Bishop tried to fight Hun off but soon both Foot operatives stepped back, getting close to the Shredder.

"This is it?" asked Bishop with a voice full of doubt. "Your best effort is to collar me? I have to say, Ch'rell, for being an advanced species you lack plan-" the blonde scientist pressed a button on a tiny remote and Bishop lit up like a fourth of July firework. Raph shielded his face and observed the Shredder's evil, content reaction.

"Those who stand in my way perish." he said simply. Raph slid on his plastron to retrieve his sais, glaring at the Shredder and those still left of his army. _What's up with this? _Raph asked himself curiously, the grip on his sais so hard he thought he'd dislocate his fingers. _Why won't he get me right now? I'm alone, without my brothers. Why's he waiting?"_

"Do I make you nervous, Raphael? You're wondering why I have yet to attack. I can see it in your face."

"Alright," he rolled his eyes, "you got me. Spill. What makes you so different?"

"When I seek to annihilate my opponents I wish to do so smartly. It's a waste to kill you one by one. You especially, since Splinter would not be able to witness it. I have a special agent coming to finish you all for me. I have other matters to attend to." his armor clanked as he made his way to the back wall, picking up the fading Maeleyn. "I get what I am promised."

"I'm not going to let you walk out of here with her!" he vowed, running at the Shredder. His enemy backhanded him, sending him sliding back on his shell.

"You fool," the Shredder stopped to stare at him with his evil, narrow red eyes. "You expect to defeat me juggling a weapon other than your own? It is evident Donatello's genius was not passed down through his elder brothers."

"So I ain't got Don's brains. Who cares? I'm hellishly stubborn, just ask my family. That means I DON'T GIVE UP!" he ran at the Shredder again, leaping with his sais pointed forward, intent on making some kind of scratch to the Shredder's armor, Leo's katana stashed in his belt. Shredder gave a high round house kick and sent him to the back wall again, straight contact. No sliding. Raphael groaned. Fighting Slash, his handlers that tried to put him in the cage, and Bishop had left him on low.

"Listen to my words Raphael. Should any of your family survive do come and find me. It will save me time to have my enemies meet their doom at my stronghold. Your family has a pathetic and amusing sense of justice, to hunt down their own enemy…if not for the sake of your skewed perception of vengeance do it for your…fellow freak here." he jostled the unconscious Maeleyn on her shoulder.

"I will give you six hours. After that I will finally have a shell to mount on my wall. Yours and those of your brothers will hang next to hers. I think your father's pelt will make a nice rug. He will symbolize the Yoshi clan as they should have always been, under my foot!" he gave another laugh.

"All forces converge, we've found the source of the infiltration!" outside soldiers that had survived the Foot infiltration converged on the room. Gunfire resumed, louder than before since it was out of the halls.

"Hun, Chaplin, move now! We must go!" the three figures receded out the huge hole, fleeing from the enemy. The Shredder cared not for who he left behind or what fatalities he caused. As long as he got away with his prize it was considered a victory with no costs.

"Hendrix, this one's not in his cage!" Raph turned to glare at the two new guards. At this point being locked up with his family wasn't so bad. He needed them. What with his girlfriend gone and Shredder tearing up the base that was supposed to keep them safe hiding away sounded nice. Maybe not politically correct or honorable but it's what he wanted. It almost felt to the terrapin that he had suffered some sort of shock.

"My god, Maddox look at Bishop! He's all over the place!"

"So are Alvaro, Dalton, and Felix!"

"Slash's dead too. This one must've done it. Look at the sword on 'im."

"Get him! Put him in a cage!"

"You gonna come quietly or are we going to have to sedate you again." to answer the man (he wasn't sure who was who) he picked up his sais and tossed it to the nearest man. A look of surprise overcame the two men's faces. Obviously they'd been warned he was the tough, rowdy one that observed nothing about the word peace.

"Maddox," said the other man slowly, "open the platform to the basement." the Latino apparent man who had spoken to his comrade, from that statement, was obviously the one with the last name Hendrix. Hendrix gestured to the unused cage that failed to be destroyed, or even moved because of the way it was built. Raphael followed, listening to the last piece of sanity he had-the bleeping of the keys hidden in the temperature dial case-as the cage was locked and slowly descended into a cool, lightless underground passage.

He was pushed off the platform by Hendrix and Maddox before the smell of the two humans faded away, what light illuminating the cages of his family slipping as the platform raised on mechanical tracks and hid them in darkness. "Raphie?" Mikey called curiously to him in a quiet, high-pitched voice, "What happened, why were you up there so long?"

"Raph, are you hurt?" Don asked. Though he couldn't see his family he could sense the close cluster of the cages and smell his brothers. It was oddly relaxing to hear and smell them, to not have to deal with what he'd just experienced.

"Are you alright, my son?"

"No…" he clenched the bars of his cage, the gravity of what he'd done without the protection and comfort of his family finally hitting him. "No, I'm not. I…I…they took her, sensei. The Shredder has Maeleyn. I…I couldn't protect her."

"Raph, one turtle can hardly stand up to the Shredder. It's alright."

"No, Donnie, it's not. He said he's got some sort of special operative comin' to wax us. How's that gonna help us? How's that gonna help her? He said I got six hours to get to her before he mounts the first of his shell collection on his wall." his knuckled clenched hard and the skin on his knuckles stretched thin. He was helpless, completely and totally helpless. Something Raphael hated to feel on any level.

"At least we're together," Mikey offered weakly.

"Raph, do you still have my katana?"

"Yeah, but what the shell is it gonna do for us? Even if we break out we don't know how to get back up there." he pointed to the ceiling, even though no one could see the gesture.

"Pass it to me." having only his brother's voice as a guide Raph blindly passed the weapon through the bars of his cage towards the direction of his elder brother. The sound of metal biting metal echoed in the dark, cool room. A rusty groan followed.

"I…I can't believe that worked!"

"Leo, dude! You got out!"

"Yep, and I'm going to help you guys out...as soon as I find you."

* * *

Karai had been startled by the presence of her father and his remaining soldiers. She hadn't expected him to converge so soon, so impatiently, on Bishop. Karai knew from living under him for so long as his daughter any early, independent work she did would be suspected a solo mission and his usual dirty work. That was fine, either way it gave her the credentials to get in and spring the turtles. Hopefully she wasn't too late.

Bishop had many more guards than what the Shredder did at this point, and that surprised her. It meant more for the killing, unfortunately. Cameras were stationed every one-third of an inch around the building, mounted into the archways and out-jutting roof part creating minor shade in the harsh terrain. Her ninja stealth made it easy to evade these men, and her katanas made it even easier to kill them. She'd been staking out the building and communicating with Chaplin for two days, learning the schematics to an intimate detail as she camped out, hid, in a primitive but effective manner.

Being denied such luxuries she was accustomed to was quite the thrill. It proved to her sense of self that she could survive without direction from her father and in the bare minimum condition. To a woman, that was very empowering. Not needing anyone but yourself to survive…it made her feel _alive_! She was finally on her own with her morals, ones that wouldn't be compromised by her father! She ducked behind one of the two large rocks placed a mere four inches from the electric fence, careful not to touch it in her crouch, and observed.

The soldiers were running in now, vacating the perimeter. How odd. It must be due to the ruckus her father was causing inside. She could hear gunshots and war cries barely escaping into the open. Slowly, cautiously, and with her katanas drawn out she advanced sneakily into the building.

As always the Foot saw her as a leader. The daughter to their boss they easily obeyed her. With a wave of her fisted hand Karai dispersed the men they had left to manipulate to act as buffers for the military men trying to cut down their defenses. She had to find the turtles! "Chaplin," she pressed two fingers to the inside of her left ear, "where are they? You said they're in the building."

"_They are_," Chaplin confirmed. "_Be careful, Karai. Go to the north wall of the building, there should be a small hallway. Go down that hallway and walk down, turn right and you should be in a big room fitted to look like a turtle habitat. There's a hollow space in the floor of that room."_

"Thank you, Chaplin. You are a great help."

"_Anything for you, Karai. I still can't believe you want to work with them…"_

"I'm sure they think the same, Chaplin," she tried to comfort him. "But I believe my father to be wrong. It is as Splinter once said, "I cannot obey my father's wishes if they go against my morals." and they do, so this is one thing I cannot allow to be done. It is not right to steal my vengeance against my rival."

"_I know, I know. Honor and all that. It doesn't mean I have to like it though, but the price is good." _

"Yes," she smiled. "But if we get them to help us than we can go, so be happy Chaplin."

"_Right. Stop, you should be near the room."_

Karai peeked in and nearly vomited at the sight of smeared entrails and blood. Rose, the Shredder, and Hun were just escaping out the large hole in the wall. She scowled. It looked as if they'd already reaped the reward they sought. She may have been too late, like she feared.

But wait! Raphael, Raphael was still there! So maybe she wasn't too late! "Lady Karai!" a Foot member swooped down upon her from a high ledge built in to the mechanical wonder behind simple-looking doors that made the base fit the 'secret governmental' standards. "We're experiencing live gunfire, it isn't safe!"

"How many of our men have been taken?"

"Approximately forty-five."

"And theirs?"

"Of the fifty we found on base maybe twelve…not counting the ones that large mutant turtle destroyed prior to our arrival."

"Do they have a reinforcement system?"

"With Bishop out of the picture that cannot be confirmed."

"What?" she cried, "Bishop was taken out?"

"Affirmative. Rose Chaplin detonated his collar."

"What's the status of the other two?"

"Kier Spector is believed to have a little over a day left to get the collar off."

"I see."

"If Mr. Spector does succeed in breaking out should we make him a temporary ally as well?"

"For the moment, no. We've too much to deal with as it is. Have squad one take out the soldiers in this room while I free the turtles. We must move quickly. What did Shredder's squad take back?"

"Just the female mutant and the scientist."

"Rilien? He was found?"

"Yes, Lady Karai. He was in the kitchen area. He wounded four members and blinded one, but he isn't fully recovered yet so he went down fast."

"Then we must move just as fast. The Shredder has done more than I expected…of course I would've expected Bishop to hide Rilien a little better."

"But Lady Karai, didn't Bishop and the Shredder make a deal concerning Rilien to begin with?"

"Yes, but it wasn't supposed to go this far. Things weren't supposed to get this messy…"

"It's amazing how intricate and horrible goals turn when one realizes how long it takes to truly attain those goals."

"Indeed. We've been sitting in the background far too long as the Shredder continues to weave his intricacies. It's time we acted."

"Lady Karai?" the Foot soldier asked softly, the sound of gunshots finally ceased as Foot soldiers and guardsmen of Area Fifty-One alike fell unconscious.

"Yes?"

"If things go as you predict what will we do in the aftermath?"

"I've sworn to myself to make a deal with Leonardo, if they agree, and whatever the outcome I've promised myself for the fate of the surviving Foot clan to go to Japan. There we can heal and avoid further conflict that may come from Saki being eliminated. The crime world will be off kilter to a frightening degree. It's scary just how much one person can influence…"

The Foot ninja placed his left hand to his ear, indicating he was receiving some sort of message from communications back at headquarters. "Chaplin says the two men that were in the room have left. It's clear to go in."

"And why didn't he tell me directly."

"In shorter words he believed you to be in poetic grace and wished not to disturb you." she rolled her eyes, a smile on her face. "Go with the remaining squad and dispose of the bodies. If Bishop has any kind of reinforcement I wish them not to see this place in such a state."

"Yes, Lady Karai."

She dropped down into the room, scanning for any coming bodies and any trace of where Raphael had gone. "Chaplin, where's the hollow cavity?"

"_Go thirty steps from the back wall. You'll be standing on it. I can't…wait…there it is. Go, go stand on it, I'll activate it."_

She counted her steps quietly with the caution of being on a tightrope instead of flat, messy ground. "Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty…" the floor beneath her shook and she flailed, seeking balance. Chaplin activated a secret panel and now the section of floor was lowering. It hurt her eyes to adjust to such extreme darkness but in sinking down to the cold basement the light spilled over the lost treasure she sought.

Her heart fell for the turtles and their father. They were in cages entirely too small, and blind as bats. Leo shielded the brightness of the light with a hand before his face, one of the two facing the mobile platform. "Karai?" Splinter addressed her in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"A wise rat once told me "I cannot obey my father's wishes if they go against my morals." this would be one of those times." she used her swords to jimmy open the locks of the other cages, watching the turtles crawl from their low-level cages to stand and stretch.

"I'm definitely not a captivity turtle," Mikey commented with a frown, stretching his joints.

"We need our weapons…we won't stand a chance if we don't have them."

"Chaplin let the soldier know my location and activate the panel again."

"Let's get the show on the road. I may not like you, Karai but if you're on our side I'll take it. I don't exactly have time to bitch," Raph grumbled.

"And what makes you so impatient?"

"Your father gave me an ultimatum. I've got six hours to get my girlfriend back."

"Then we must go." as if knowing or sensing her urgency the designated soldier lowered himself; a katana, set of nunchucks, walking stick, and a bo staff wrapped in his arms. "Chaplin, raise the platform."

"_There you go. Be careful. I'll try to help you get in but it may look too suspicious. I love you. I have to go, they just brought Rilien in."_

"My affection is returned, Chaplin."

"Eeew, you like nerd boy?" _whack! _

"Michelangelo, this is neither the time nor the place to be debating another's love life."

"Sorry sensei."

"Enough talk," Raph growled. "Let's _move_!"


	18. Chapter 18

Enigma

**AN: Thank you to the newcomer to the story, **iiEpic F A I L**, for reviewing chapter two. I hope you continue, finish, and like the story! The second thank you I have to give out goes, again, to **Eskimo-Otter **for commenting on chapter seventeen. Now readers may not have liked how I avoided the grislier details of the rape scene but Fanfiction and many other writing websites skew their guidelines to accept younger readers so I took the cautious route and gave ideas and short obvious indications instead of putting it in detail like I usually would, to save the story from getting removed (because I have had it happen to me before and it's annoying - especially with getting so far on this one). Might have to break this into two parts because what I'm envisioning would make for an incredibly LONG chapter on the readers. It had been decided, actually, I'm breaking this scene into two parts. New estimate: nineteen or twenty chapters.**

**This chapter was exceptionally long for me to write (took three days, and is approximately eighteen pages on MS word) so if you see any errors please leave me a note and I'll come back to edit them :). Thanks very much, enjoy!**

The first thing Kier did upon waking was snap a picture of his collar. He knew his time had gone down by at least a full day; according to his phone the day was Saturday and Friday was well wasted due to rotation and job duties on the _Eagleton_. Kier Spector trusted no one but Jeeters and Kirkland to handle this, and while the assuredness the old navy man had was good since it was aligned with his instincts the stubborn nature he possessed wasted precious time. _Click_! What seemed to be an airy, defeated sigh left him as the enlarged picture was destroyed, the phone closing. If Jeeters or Kirkland didn't text him back soon he might be in trouble.

His time was nearly cut by more than half now. Usually Kier was a dawn-waking man but he could only assume the sheer insanity of being cooped up in this shack (even for a day) was making him restless enough to sleep because it seemed like there was no way to ease his mind from what could be the inevitable. Hun beating him senseless before they dumped his unconscious body in here probably helped. He could deduce from having forty-seven hours and then some from the day before that he'd been placed in there around "seven something" in the evening, as he patrolled the small room searching for signal for an hour. Whatever the chief reason he knew it had piled up on his exhausted body and allowed him to sleep a near eleven hours.

His unusual sleeping hour count roused very old, painful memories of a long-lost Serene Spector. He hadn't thought about his wife in nearly eighteen years, or tried his damnedest not to, which that didn't work too well. Kier found himself thinking of his lover now more than ever, when it looked in just a short twelve hours he would be joining her at last, and his daughter would be alone in the world unless the Foot had spared Rilien. She slept almost full twelve-hour periods during her first trimester with Maeleyn in her womb; instead of getting morning sick she experienced extreme fatigue and fell asleep easily as if she had narcolepsy. A tear rolled down his cheek as the memory barrage continued to batter him.

Kier shut his eyes, but the images continued; some memories made him laugh at in sheer disbelief-like when Serene jumped in at his defense at a bar in Quahog when another guy's girl went to try and claw his eyes out with her acrylic nails after the guys got into it as they would, given guy nature-utter glee-Serene initiating the pillow fight an hour before their wedding night, just because she felt too prim and serious after the wedding; she was a vivacious, charismatic woman with the heart of a child and steely disposition of a Spartan warrior-or helped him cry a little more-their first big fight caused by his own jealous nature and bad instincts after he spied her meeting an old-time friend for lunch three weeks after they moved in together, he'd slept on the couch for the next two days, one by her own wish and one due to leftover disappointment at his own actions-because now was just an appropriate time for the man that hadn't cried in nearly seven years. Serene was the reason he called Maeleyn his warrior princess, but he'd never told her that. Probably never would, given this current circumstance.

Somewhere in him, though, Kier thought she knew. Maeleyn was a spiritual, intuitive girl. He had a feeling she knew more about her mother than she let on, if just by the daughter-mother bond that she didn't remember existing. Serene may have died giving birth to her but that didn't mean she wasn't around spiritually to be with her, the one girl she was so excited to be carrying in her womb. Kier bit his knuckle to stop the choked wails threatening to overcome him, as he often refused to think of Serene and Maeleyn in the same thought (except on the holidays, their anniversary, and their birthdays). It just hurt too much.

If someone would've asked him almost twenty years ago if he thought love could cut this much, hurt a _marine _this much he would've rolled his eyes and brushed them off. That was twenty years ago, though, and had they asked him earlier in those nineteen years he would've disproved them with simple male logic, but had they asked in the latter half of that year he would've agreed. Serene had met him in October and they'd wed nearly right away in March the following year. It was a match made in heaven; fast but deep. At last he felt that he'd finally cried all of his sorrows out, feeling somewhere in his soul that God knew what he was doing making him think of his lost lover and all of that pain.

Wiping his eyes Kier realized what that trip down memory lane had done. It had made him more stubborn than ever to come out of this alive, reminding him of what tragedy he'd already overcome to stand alive today, happy, with a healthy daughter, and a home still in his possession. He stood up firmly, confidently, and with more pride than ever, thinking back to the rigid standards of his navy training and how he'd tried so hard to be his best, to absorb his training. Kier would use that training now, and utilize that stubbornness Serene would chide him for to escape happy and free to his daughter. _For Serene, _Kier thought as he felt a wetness sneaking up from his eye again, _because she would've wanted someone to be there for Maeleyn, and wouldn't take this helplessness from me. I was strong for her and I'll damn sure be strong for myself and my daughter!_

His phone buzzed and Kier wrapped his five fingers around it, already feeling the oncoming effects of the cool night; he'd failed to realized it was dark when he'd wakened. The stars had yet to come across the tiny window and Kier groaned. No food and no water was already proving to be difficult to cope with - his throat was dry and he constantly swallowed for reprieve of it, circulating saliva and looking around as if a stash of _something _was hiding in the shack with him. If he was desperate enough he could probably stack the crates on top of each other and suck moisture out of the creases in the wood.

Wait…that was on a show, where had he seen that? Ah yes, _The Simpsons_…by god he was already going crazy, thinking of trying things he'd seen on TV! Everyone knew TV stuff didn't work anymore. "I wish I could remember something from _MacGyver _right now…" he muttered with a scowl as he fluffed his hair atop his scalp again to keep it off his skin, praying for the code that showed Jeeters and Kirkland were back at their posts on the _Eagleton_. He smiled happily, breathing a sigh of relief as he moved towards the window, sitting on the crate he'd moved a day ago to maintain signal as he read.

There were a slew of texts, actually, and Kier was surprised. He had his messaging setting to where the "old" new ones hit the bottom of the box and the "new" new ones were at the top. READ ME FIRST! he clicked on it. Kier, we're going to send you programming codes. Save the next three texts to your phone card and try to insert it in your collar. Jeeters thinks the pictures you sent yesterday had a slit-lock near the time display. The task of saving the messages to the phone took a few minutes, as he had to remember how to save it just to the CARD, or make sure it got to the card, but it was done.

He paused, looking at the date since it came up in small text near the time on his phone. Yesterday had been the June equinox, which explained why it hadn't yet been dark when he'd woken up the other day. When trapped in a shack given no food, water, or toys the oddest things began to bother him. The once hot, sunny window had been one of them. What now? Kier texted back curiously, his shirt wrapped around the wounded hand and sticking it out the window, waiting on a response and the tone to have it sent.

Gazing at his arm Kier quickly pulled it in after hearing the confirming tone. Seeing the shirt wrapped around it sparked a strong urge to itch it. He knew he couldn't itch the open wounds but just the idea of having them, and having no medicine to put on them, was about as bad as having chicken pox and not scratching them. If Shredder's plan was to drive him crazy it might work. After all, he was stuck in a shack, doomed to be killed by cyanide unless the loyal geeks on the _Eagleton _could help him out, and, worst of all, he knew nothing of his brother or his daughter.

That hurt him more than the open wound or bodily harm brought on by not eating or drinking. Even his headache paled in comparison to that fatherly fear begging to know his kin was alright. He put his head in his good hand, groaning and pinching the bridge of his nose. Something had to give here…it couldn't end like this. It never ended like this for the good guys! Well, if it did there was usually a memorial, a song, and an epic poem wrote about them.

All saved? the latest text asked as Kier drew his naked legs up to his chest and propped his bad arm on his right knee, letting the shirt-protected arm dangle carelessly. Yes, he texted back, they're all saved. If anything could come from this at least he could get a workout on his bad arm by repeatedly sticking it in and out of the little window. Between Jeeters and Kirkland they must've switched texting control on him because the mannerisms in the following text were different. Send me an update of the collar and I'll enlarge it to show you where the hidden port is; whoever this bitch is she thinks she's real smart. An escape has been hiding under anyone else's nose she's stuck these on, too, but they don't have bitching navy hackers to tell 'em! You're a lucky son of a bitch, Spector.

_Click!_ Spector took a second picture of the collar and sent it to the two working men, sticking his arm out the window again. Each bleat of the signal made him cheer inside, and intensified that ray of hope into a stronger and stronger beam. With the ability to still text and with the two geniuses on the other side combating the original collar programming with a program of their own it seemed like he would live through this. Maybe it would be a funny story-funny with time-to tell Maeleyn when he finally had her back in his arms, regardless of what she looked like. All Kier wanted right now was a healthy life, most of his limbs, and his baby girl; nothing else in the world mattered (revenge was a 'duh', but not allowed to make the list of happy, positive things keeping him going…though revenge did entertain him).

Ten minutes later, at nine-fifty in the evening-had he really woken up so late? He wondered. He must've, but the thought that he'd only been awake for two hours or so surprised him; he felt more exhausted and wired than that. But that made sense, given the eleven hours he suffered a combination of being awake, alert, mourning, sleeping, and thinking with the thought of a clock ticking down around his neck pressing on his mind. That combination right there must've been the reason for such a delayed want to wake, his body simply had to give and sleep to restore itself-another message was sent to his phone.

By now Kier was in an intense state of concentration, rivaling near obsession with his only lifeline. The hunger pains faded away, and the pulsing crave for liquid in his throat was stripped away, his tired eyes, old eyes keyed in on the words illuminated by the painfully white backlight on the phone. View the attached picture and feel for the crease with your fingernail. After you find it keep your finger there. Here's where it gets risky… the text trailed off and he realized because the first portion was combined with the detailed, enlarged picture of the collar now reading _10 hours, five minutes, and six seconds_, and he opened the second sent text.

Kirkland and I have concluded the only thing small enough to fit in the collar is your cell phone sim card. We want you to take it out and place it in the spot where your finger is, go back to the first text and find the spot again if you lost it. Text us again after inserting it, KEEP IT IN FOR FIVE SECONDS, there should be a noise. Put your sim card back in your phone and send us a new picture. We should be able to unlock it from there.

_Shit…_he thought. This WAS getting risky! What if his phone card got stuck? Then he wouldn't have a way to contact them and he really would be finished! Breathing a sigh, realizing he had little other options to try, Kier texted back okay, attempt in progress! before shutting off his phone, removing the tiny sim card out of the top of it, and placing the thin, tiny chip next to his pinky finger to slide it in there.

Sweat began to bead on his skin, the Spector man was a raging ball of panic on the inside, how could he not be? "One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…" _beep-beep! _he swabbed at his sweaty brow with the protective shirt and sighed, putting the tiny chip back in his phone and turning it on, flicking it open to start texting once again. He felt his heart drop into his stomach and his skin tightened with chills when he saw the first lines of the incoming text. ABORT, ABORT! it read, WE SENT THE WRONG MESSAGE SET!

* * *

Raphael felt very foreign, and very panicked as he and his brothers slipped into what they called their 'OPS' gear. They weren't used to wearing hardly anything else but their masks, elbow pads, and knee pads, or even their belts but these black clothes they wore covered their torsos. It was a feeling he was accustomed to. At least they still had their individual personality in the extra clothes, but that was the least of his worries at the moment. _Maeleyn, Maeleyn, Maeleyn! _his brain chanted, possessed, _Maeleyn, Maeleyn, Maeleyn!_

He didn't feel like wasting time dressing up in more clothes, he wanted to get to Maeleyn! But at the same time he could understand, and felt some sort of odd calm in dressing in the dark fabrics, knowing it would keep him safer in the long run. Besides, Leo and Splinter had both decided dark clothes were needed for this special mission; they had a wounded in the hands of their enemy, in the heart of his stronghold, and who knew if time was of the essence? The extra clothes were to aid in their stealth. This mission, unlike others, would not grant the luxury of endless fights and unconscious body counts, it was strictly a 'get in, get out, and conquer only the boss' type.

It was just coming on ten thirty and Raph swallowed hard. They had four and a half hours to get her back, or they may not get her back at all. Splinter decided to join them for the mission, though he did not change his robes (he was a ninja master compared to them, he needn't change to suit the darkness) and Casey would stay with April at the lair as she attempted to help the turtles and Karai with the security systems from the inside, having once been an employee of Stockman. Karai, or one of her henchman had grabbed Maeleyn's kamas before they left so Raph needn't worry that she would be unarmed when he found her. The question to whether she would be strong enough came to mind but he didn't care about the answer, he wouldn't let her do any fighting.

She'd been through enough, and was probably going through worse as they stood around panicking on the inside and trying to attain steely calm at the same time. "Quickly my sons, come." Splinter darted after Karai with speed the turtles hadn't witnessed since their first encounter with Shredder atop the water tower but they didn't suffer from shock. They knew his capabilities, and they knew time was a factor.

* * *

The blonde stared at her with an evil smugness she hadn't seen since being in high school, most notably by the snooty bitches who thought they were at the top of the social food chain. It was a smile that was icy cold, sharp, and perfectly glossed with deception, glee, and cosmetics. Maeleyn continued to shake; her body weak after the assault and ice cold. She didn't feel very well, that was both common sense and an understatement. Inside herself, while she still clung to hope that she would come out alive, that the turtles would execute the biggest, nicest cliché of the moment and save her, she felt past the point of repair psychologically and physically.

This woman staring her down made Maeleyn feel as if she were in some sort of alternate universe where she was facing her former self. She was once a human, and sure a couple of people called her beautiful, but now she felt like she was discovering the truth about her old form. Her old form was mad, disgusted with how she accepted this new form, traded it all in, gave it away, to be as she was, content with her new life. The only difference was the blonde hair and eyes on the old figure of hers, that was clearly Rose Chaplin, but she was acting out the same actions of persecution that she imagined the Old Maeleyn to do. It was going to kill her, or assist in the killing, because Old Maeleyn didn't like New Maeleyn.

It wanted to hide the nasty secret that was never supposed to be. Maeleyn's delusion was swiftly killed when that paranoia, that fear, found a new reason to exist. This woman was the only female still left on base, the only one with any chance of understanding what it felt like to be slapped around and violated for another's tasteless wants, and in her cold eyes Maeleyn found no sympathy. A guillotine in the guise of a woman opened the cage door and pulled her up by the cuffs she wore like some degenerate criminal. It was time; Maeleyn felt like throwing up.

She was going to die, and there were still so many things she had no way to answer or to discover. Since doing it with Raphael in "their room" she'd wanted to know if he'd given her a child, too afraid to ask Donnie to check for her, or Camilla; she was almost certain he had, her mood swings had been the first indicator, and her weariness the second. Her father had once told her that her own mother slept for long period of time when she was but a growing fetus long ago. But it was almost certain now, if there had been a child, she would've aborted it due to what had happened. Maeleyn was beginning to think she never had one, or that she'd lost it as she recalled the way the blood leaked from her thighs, and her organs ached from such a rapid rhythm and pressure pressing on her body. That hurt her most of all, she decided, to possibly have had a child-with Raphael no less-and to have it taken from her by force of another man.

"Get up you slut. The Master wants you cleaned before you're presented." she had no energy to fight back. Her spirit finally felt broken, and fighting felt futile. Maybe if she hadn't thought of losing that son or daughter she might've had she'd been a little angrier but she remembered losing her mother, what it felt like not having her, and wondered how the other end of the spectrum felt before actually feeling it eat at her. She'd lost a child. It was a strong, scary feeling-the world slipping away from you in every sense-but it was done.

Now there seemed no problem with dying. What did she have left? Except, that is, to tell Raphael he'd lost his first child, or felt most certain that he had, at any rate. The cuffs chaffed her asparagus green wrists to the point where they were pulsating tenderly again, as if Slash were holding them in a vice like he had for the first five minutes they stared at one another prior to the turtles seeing them in the cage, and she felt blood began to bleed under the biting steel. Rose pointed wordlessly to the shower stall, a morbid thing growing the littlest bit of moss on the floor and Maeleyn stumbled to it; her thighs and vagina felt thoroughly pulled and in pain at the simple act of walking.

"Slash got pretty rough with you, didn't he?" Rose regarded Maeleyn like she wasn't even coherent, like they were on two separate levels. "Guess that means Shredder lost his second-generation mutant. Oh well…you didn't have much beginning value anyways. It's been diminished. I am surprised you've lasted this long, though." Rose Chaplin groaned as she heaved a metal bucket upside down, a torrent of ice water crashing down on Maeleyn's head, turning her dark locks into a slick, sleek, shimmery blanket of onyx tresses. Her hair dripped excess water as the next four buckets came, and her lungs opened and closed like automatic doors.

It was waterboarding. One second the grim world around her would be crystal clear, and the next all obscured and merging back together into a normal picture. She felt like there was no air in between buckets as Rose filled them all up and started over again. Was it supposed to drive her insane? Maeleyn was irritated with the treatment, angry with what she'd suffered at the hands of the man supposed to help her and her friends, and slowly felt the urge to fight back for herself-and her lost child-returning with a vengeance.

She turned her head, eyeing Rose with yellowing eyes, growling. The scientist paused, putting her hands on her hips, the ninth bucket of water on the floor; she had the audacity to laugh. "Don't even think about it. I have a taser and I'm not afraid to use it. Shredder said he wants you alive, he said nothing about being paralyzed." Maeleyn felt her heart drum nervously in her chest; the window of opportunity was upon her, she had to act now!

Using her tail she flung what may have been a ten pound bucket of water to the blonde scientist, effectively drenching her and turning the golden locks of hers stringy and dark. She stood swiftly, ignoring the clenching pain and muscle spasm residue induced by the cold water begging her to stay still. Maeleyn flicked Rose's coat open with her tail, ripping the shirt somewhat with her wildly flailing tail and the coarse ridges on them. The hybrid snatched the taser and pressed the button down, figuring her executioner assistant would have it on for cautionary measures.

A crackling sound resounded and Maeleyn watched Rose twitch as she fell to the floor. Dragging her feet across the slick floor until her vaginal muscles quit trying to clench together she grabbed the ajar door of her cage, steadying herself. As long as she kept the taser on her she might be okay, she'd just have to avoid tasering her own cuffs. Maeleyn moved swiftly, filled with sheer panic despite her want to be full of determinism. If she were to die tonight she had a few things left on her list, and she would do them.

One was to tell Raphael, again, how much she loved him (as cliché as it sounded) and the other was to tell him and his brothers there was hope for future generations. And before she died, if she died, tonight, she wanted to know what he would've called it…him. Maeleyn had an almost motherly intuition that it would've matured into a boy. Her heart yearned to know what word would've left her lips in praise, love, and so many other ways in the years to come, had he been around. Wherever they were, in a basement perhaps, judging by how dark it was and how moist, people didn't patrol here too much.

It made sense though; when she first escaped it was in an underground way. Strange, though, she didn't realize the path she walked at the very moment. _They must've done some renovating, _she thought, the taser in an iron grip as she stalked and scouted for potential threats. Her fingers closed to the soaked material around her eyes. If she died tonight she died a Hamato, and proud. Scared as hell, but proud.

For almost an hour she walked the halls undetected, maybe they thought Rose was doing a _thorough_ cleaning, and she couldn't believe her luck. A calm came about her, an ethereal calm, and she looked up to the sky she couldn't see outside the walls of this hellhole. It was her mother…her mother was helping her tonight. She was watching over her child, the one she'd never gotten to meet. Somewhere in her mind, from memories past, she heard the soft bedtime voice of her father whisper sweetly in her ear, _"Your mother loved you more than you could ever imagine. She would move the sun and moon for you. She always said there'd be nothing in the living world that would stop her from being with you, from helping you when you needed it most…" _and that really spoke to her, now in her darkest hour.

The hybrid felt almost untouchable, alive, serious, but with an undertone of levity. _My mother, _she found herself thinking, almost wondering if she'd finally lost it, _my mother…she's here with me! _the words she once assumed she'd never even think she said now, in her mind, as she did sweeps of any rooms she came across. Nothing so far. Maybe someone up there wanted her to live, she thought with a slight hint of sarcasm to herself. Closer up now to the mouth of a set of stairs she paused, picking up a faint sound. She ducked into the closest door, holding her breath.

Her eyes widened. Gustav! The massive bull-ape hybrid struggled to breathe, and was currently connected to an oxygen tank but he was alive! _He must be near the end stage of death, _she thought in pity. For what was known about him, he was a good ally. "Gustav?" Maeleyn whispered curiously, softly, "Gustav can you hear me?"

His sad, large eyes still wise but dull gazed at her. A slight foamy slobber oozed out of his lips, and that's when she realized what was going on. He wasn't hooked up to oxygen, but a chemical hallucinogen. She took the mask from around his face, his hooves bolted down to the floor by iron rings, and let him breathe his first untainted breathes in who knew how long? She'd stay with him until he could function again, knowing he'd be a good thing to bring into battle, especially if this was her last fight.

And if he couldn't help her all the way at least he could help the others. They'd be here one way or another; she had no doubt about that. "Just move around a bit to get the drug to metabolize and finish," she egged gently, stroking his slightly grungy, lackluster fur. "We need to get your system cleaned, buddy." the first thing he did was wretch, and Maeleyn quickly dodged. Not the best thing to do, but certainly not the worst, that means the drug was escaping.

Each minute they sat there, alone in the eerie silence her panic worsened. They should be looking for her now, trying to find her so the Shredder could kill her. How long would it take someone to find Rose paralyzed? Had she hidden well enough? Hopefully by the time someone found her Gustav would be coherent enough to offer aid.

She began to notice his responsiveness increasing as they sat there on the cold concrete, her fingers unrelenting in the talon-like grasp of the taser. He would blink his eyes more, then draw his arms up away from the iron rings, and soon he pulled his back legs under his stomach in an effort to sit right. "Thank you," he whispered, blinking slowly, almost sleepily.

"You're welcome, good to see you back. Guess they didn't pump you too full of that stuff, hm?"

"I was just recently moved down here," he said, "they moved Rilien in a few hours ago and they put me down here as a result. They know how I get seeing him being abused. Bishop must've warned them."

"Mmm…well, we need to get you out of here. I'm in no good shape and if they're coming to get me like they say I'd like to leave behind some help for the guys."

"Yes…I've heard all about their plan for you. Tell me, have you willingly ever gotten a tattoo?"

"What?"

"Master Shredder, sir, she's been found." the Foot soldier broke off the communication and a small squad of five burst in to the room, probably waiting on her to get comfy in conversation before doing so, knowing her guard would be down. Gustav, now off the hallucinogen, was able to lift up his mighty arms and break the chains holding him to the floor. For a second or two the squad hesitated.

"No, Gustav…stand down. I meet this Shredder myself, head on. It's what Raphael would've done. I am not a beaten woman." Maeleyn squared her shoulders and raised her head proudly, remembering she wore the Hamato headband Master Splinter had personally chosen for her. She was a Hamato now, had been for a while, and Hamatos were not afraid. They did not cower in the face of the Shredder. They laughed at him and kicked his ass, licking what wounds they had after the party. "Let's go party, boys." no more hiding, no more morbid thinking. She was a warrior princess.

They prodded her in the back with the mouths of their guns and she turned to glance at Gustav over her shoulder. "Go find them, they'll be here!"

"Keep moving, we're already behind schedule…" they snapped, the gun s in their hand whirring rapidly to indicate charged up status and willingness to fire. She scowled, stepping forward as the chains continued to chaff and drip blood, one escorting her by pulling said chains and the other making sure to keep a gun at her back to prevent escape. "Stockman," one spoke into his wrist communicator disguised in the sleeve of his uniform, "what's Rose's status? Prep her for transport near the top floor."

"_She's coming to. Of course…as you say." _the voice was obviously too nice coming through the communicator, but obedient so it went unnoticed. To Gustav it sounded like a voice full of planning, a voice finally full of victory for suffered indiscretions. That meant the pieces were finally falling into place, and he had to get up and do something about those falling pieces - some were very deadly, and all of them wanted to kill the turtles.

Gustav could only assume that he was too dizzy to comprehend, or that he was too close to dying to do anything, and they left him lying on the floor. Their footsteps receded down the hallway and he poked his head out of the room, sniffing. The rich metallic odor of blood permeated the air and he looked down at the ground. That was her blood. She was bleeding.

_She must've hurt Rose, _he thought, remembering the smell of burnt flesh on the end of the taser. _Then I'll return the favor before they burn her. I've got to find them…but what floor are they on?_

_

* * *

_

His eyes nearly shot out of his skull. They sent the wrong message set? What in the hell was wrong with them? How could they have gotten his life-or-death situation mixed up with something else? A million other questions shot through Kier's brain as he trembled, fearing the vomit climbing to the top of his throat, barely able to hold on to his phone. What were the repercussions, then, if he hadn't been the intended target?

What did you DO? he texted back, fearful of the answer as he stood atop the one crate, clutching the glassless wooden windowpane for support not granted by his weak legs. He didn't care which one answered now, he just needed an answer.

We're communicating with the government, the text read, they wanted us to demonstrate how we could encrypt a time coded program via text that would trigger a temperature fluctuation and observe the repercussions.

What does that mean for me? Kier asked them.

Well…Jeeters thinks it convinced the clock on your collar through heat stimulus that the detonating time is growing closer. Sort of like how a volcano gets really hot and spews noxious gas, rumbling right before an eruption?

YOU SCREWED UP MY CLOCK? I'M STILL IN THIS THING! YOU COULD KILL ME!

WE DIDN'T SEND IT, SPECTOR SO STOP HAVING YOUR BITCH FIT AND LISTEN OR WE CAN'T HELP YOU! the phone was buzzing like crazy as the messages shot back and forth. Apparently a junior monitor of the computer systems, a man named Swanson, had sent the government files to him, thinking Jeeters or Kirkland had already set him up to do so. What a fuck up…if…no _when _Kier escaped from this hell hole he'd personally kick that guy in his dick. Take a picture of your collar so we can edit the encryption. What vomit he'd been holding back was finally released, hitting the floor harshly and splattering in a messy asterisk-like shape near his feet, all dry heaving-induced, thanks to no liquids in his system.

Instead of the previous _10 hours, five minutes, and six seconds_ he had been warned of in the previous picture the collar now read _4 hours, five minutes, and six seconds_. The Spector father was pretty sure he'd just shit himself in some manner. That was a whole six hours that fuck up had taken off! He snapped the picture, shaking all over again, and harder than before, as he sent it back. He collapsed atop the crate, the sheer disbelief causing his knees to buckle, now completely unable to support him, even with the assistance of the window.

As we suspected, the message reply returned three minutes later, the temperature program modified the brain of the clock but we can work with that. We're cleaning your sim card completely. When we send it back there will be _nothing _but Jeeters' and my code on here, it's a copying parasite that'll force the flow of live encryption into the sim card so we can study it. Standard governmental stuff, sort of like a portable Trojan horse that remembers the data and allows you to keep it instead of just piggybacking on it.

He received a second text and opened it, scanning the title for any warning, which it had none. This is Jeeters, it said, and I hereby swear not to leave this room or go to the bathroom until we have you out alive. Semper Fi.

Semper Fi, texted back Kier, feeling a close camaraderie with the two saving his life. There was hope yet. If there plan was as unique and good as it sounded he'd be out yet. The only question that bugged him was: how long would analyzing that data take? He only had four hours now…

* * *

Rilien winced at the sharp prod of a knife near his shoulder. The Foot weren't taking too kindly to him now, more than ever, since he'd blinded a man with the butter knife in Camilla's kitchen. Or maybe it was the epic jousting with the lidless blender and turning it on when the soldier just looked at him with narrowed eyes before they cornered him. Either way he'd left his mark, but now he was suffering the consequences. One Rilien to five wounded soldiers wasn't too bad a score.

He knew through mentally documenting the Shredder's personality during his previous captivity that he was the type to offer an ultimatum, and only an ultimatum. Shredder liked to see that last bit of offered hope snatched from his adversaries, knowing that last, final failed attempt broke them more than anything. Rilien pulled at the collar they'd affixed to his neck as he swallowed, knowing he couldn't get it off alone. Swallowing hurt, and his Adam's apple pressed against the metal section before disappearing, the pain receding with it.

Now wasn't the time to think of himself, though. His niece was a captive once again, and he had to save her. While his other research projects were still in an infant state he couldn't bear to think they would use the amnesia drug on her and make her forget everything, turn her into a tool for his wants. At this point, with what the Shredder had gone through-facing Bishop fighting for the same prize, watching the turtles tighten into an even tighter, more defensive clan protecting one of "their own"-Rilien had little doubt the punishment would be as…sweet…as administering an amnesia drug so he could "rewire" her like none of his shame had ever happened.

No, the Shredder would make this humiliation disappear the one way he knew really worked. Rilien swallowed the nausea back down in his stomach and shook his head. His life was more than over, now it was time to make sure she kept hers. Stationed on the thirty-sixth floor he was in the heart of the control room. Monitors bleeped and buzzed all around him; he was to keep an eye out for any awaited intruders and notify the Shredder near the seventy-second floor. The cameras rotated rhythmically, revolving and relaying information between various cameras to cover the full seventy-two floors with brief stints of basement ground footage while Rilien watched over it all.

He tuned out to the babble of the Foot guards, watching the tapes intently. Some ethereal force tickled him on the inside, something was amiss. The reduction of knife pressure at his back confirmed that and he replayed the last five minutes of all tapes to see what was up. Maeleyn! Maeleyn had escaped Rose Chaplin, for the moment, and had found Gustav who they'd shoved into the basement floor to keep him out of the way. Gustav was off his hallucinogen, functioning, and mowing down whatever surprised Foot he encountered.

Gustav appeared to be…searching for someone, something. _Those other turtles…_thought Rilien, almost instantly, recalling the four heroes and their rat father that aided his recuperation. _They've come to help her…as if she were originally one of them, like whatever life she had failed to exist before meeting them. Almost like adoption into the emididae class. Interesting. _What guards were in his room left, giving him a stern warning not to move, reminding him they had trained lasers on the room, on him, among other deadly things. There was no doubt in his mind those turtles were in the building somewhere, trying to find her. Rilien scanned the camera loop again, trying to find them.

For everything Shredder was capable of he failed to see how that same set of capabilities discouraged others from doing him favors. He failed to understand what he ordered others to do, and focused primarily on vile influence and revenge. Rilien knew many things about this company, among them that Rose Chaplin and Stockman were an item-for who knew what reason besides squeezing out information-, Chaplin and Karai were indeed lovers, and that Gustav's implanted devices had never been terminated or cleaned since Bishop had made him. That worked for him.

Initiating Gustav's pilot mode he double-checked the swift pace of the ascending turtle-ally crew and continued to type in the brought up window that was, essentially, Gustav's brain. **Meet up with turtles and Karai on the twentieth floor. Stop for only them. Take out any enemy in your way.** Breathing out a sigh of worry Rilien steepled his fingers against his lips and held his breath, wondering just how well this would all go down. Everyone was converging and in a chaos now, it was the last stand - the end of the end.

Tonight alone would decide who would come out alive or die in the rubble a noble patron, or even an extinguished enemy. As it stood even Rilien knew not which side he would end up on, he only hoped the Spector legacy lived on, that those altruistic Hamato mutants lived to tell the tale of the bi-animal contaminate war that would never be, thanks to them.

* * *

"This way, there is an elevator that will take us to the fortieth floor!" Karai called out to them after parrying a blow from another disobedient Foot member that saw her no longer as the daughter of their employer but a highly-trained enemy. The turtles scurried after her, their weapons already dripping and crusting with blood. Raphael was dirty up to his elbows in enemy blood but he paid no mind; every person he killed was one less getting in his way at the end. By Don's watch they only had two hours now, and his heart was riled with panic. He knew from the previous rendezvous they had the elevator systems dropped off at odd levels, and never went straight to the top because that would compromise Shredder's sense of security by giving his enemy a direct line to him.

"Only the fortieth?" Mikey whined as he wrapped his nunchuck around the out-flung arm of a nearby enemy and pitched him to Leo who split-kicked him across the room, unconscious into the wall. It seemed like all the floors until this one had been weak layers of mechanics, weaponry floors, or floors for the employed soldiers to watch. The more important things, such as central control, were above (as Karai had told them) on floors such as the thirty-sixth.

"Twenty less we got to climb bro, shut up and head for the elevator." they had to make it…they had to! _I won't let her die…I can't. She's getting out of here alive! _He had to get that question answered; it'd been bugging him for days. His terrapin nose picked up a scent different from her usual milk and honey sweetness, and a fear had been gnawing on him for days. What if she had been…? What if he was…? God he couldn't let her die without even knowing! It would torment him until the end of his own life!

The twentieth floor was peppered with unconscious enemies, some wielding daggers, others wielding tonfas, but none too lethal as of yet. Having Karai at their disposal was definitely a plus. As Leo suspected they would, as all of them suspected, the first of the elite began to show themselves, wearing traditional straw hats and glaring with the aim to intimidate - they would get no further than this. Four black-clad experts darted around the room nearly too fast for the turtles to blink, and each brother raised their weapon defensively. Air wrapped around the progressing troop as they waited for the enemies to still, strike, so they could lash out as a unit and knock their currently most-lethal adversaries down.

If they could just clear the path for a second the elevator would be in reach and Karai could lock it on her secure line to where even a power failure wouldn't deter it. She, like Saki, had special access to the secondary backup power that required not a generator because it was of Utrom origin. She gave a cry as she felt the material on her right shoulder give way, an angry cry, as the blood began to ooze rapidly from the wound. All at once the elite with the double bladed staff was still, aiming to hit Splinter in his spinal cord since the rodent was pushing the other elite off and away from Donatello, who was trying to give Michelangelo some assistance.

"Be gone, if you shall not serve me you serve no one!" Karai whipped her right katana around in a semi circle masterfully and went to slit the elite's throat but a blast from a fired gun tossed him aside like a toy. She knew that weapon…Chaplin had devised it days ago, claiming to make it on behalf of the Shredder but she knew better. The ammunition that had struck the elite was a foreign plasma gel that weakened Utrom devices; he'd seen Stockman gearing up with it and chose to limit Stockman's reserve of it, making guns out of it since he knew what Karai had been planning. "Chaplin!" Karai cried out happily, immediately putting the scientist to the created weapon but she paused in her praise of saving when she saw not a man, but a beast.

One of Bishop's old creations, the one close to dying. "Not quite," said Gustav, blowing smoke off the mouth of the gun. "Rilien's in the thirty-sixth floor, he told me to meet you here."

"Where is she?" Raph felt like he was asking the question far too much and his mouth, like everything else that made him, hurt. His lungs hurt, his legs hurt, his arms hurt. "Where is she?"

"She's been taken to the top floor, I'm not sure if her 'punishment' has passed or not. Now's not the time for questions, we'd best hurry."

"Keep the path clear until we get to the elevator!" Karai wasted no other words, jumping into the oncoming fray of men as she swung her katanas left and right, an opposite rhythm from Leonardo, as Gustav moved behind them, clearing a way for the other three of the party.

"Get in to the elevator!" he swung his massive body to and fro, knocking the last surge of Foot soldiers for the twentieth floor around like toys. "I'll take the stairs and meet you on the fortieth floor. I have business to attend to." the door closed on the image of Gustav making sure those Foot soldiers that were down stayed down, his silky fur splattered and crusted with blood and his hooves dotted with entrails when forced to take the gorier route.

For a moment or two the turtle brothers and their comrades could breathe easy, assured to make it to at least the fortieth. Here their muscles could ache and their lungs could quite the screaming for air. "It doesn't make any sense…" Donnie whispered, "why wouldn't he get into the elevator with us?"

"Yeah?" Mikey nodded, "we could sure use him."

"What the hell is he doing to her?" Raph had a white-knuckle grip on his sais. The word 'punishment' rolled around in his head nonstop like some annoying, noisy rock. What was she going through? Was she okay? Would she make it? Surely he wouldn't go back on his offered time limit…but then again, this was Oruku Saki.

His stomach twisted in nauseating knots and he fought back the urge to throw up, feeling dizzy instead since he fought the sensation with such raw worry. "Raph, you okay bro? Take a breather, we got a couple seconds…" Leo eased him to the floor, seeing the drawn tightness of his little brother's face. He could only imagine how emotional Raphael was….while Maeleyn had made herself a family member she'd made herself much more to his little brother.

"I can't…I can't, I can't!" Leo kept hearing Raph murmur as he pressed the cool steel, red-wrapped handle of his sai to his face for relief. "Leo we have to. We have to get her…we have to."

"We're going to Raph, take it easy. Breathe, bro." the whirring of the elevator ascending the floors lulled Raph into a temporarily inactive state and he sighed. His bones rattled deep within him, driven by pure gut feeling. _There's more riding on this than there will ever be in any other fight, _he knew by some astral wisdom, by some higher power, _I think that smell…the way she acted…she wasn't moody. She was…I'm a father. I won't let him take my family!_

Muffled by the elevator some calamity outside the carrying tunnel shook the elevator. Everyone latched on to one another or grabbed the small side panels in the elevator for stabilization. "Chaplin!" Karai pressed her earpiece in hard with two fingers. "Chaplin, report! What's going on?"

"_Stockman…cyborg suit…commu….commu….fried…beat it….power crazy!" _there was clear distress in the chief engineer's voice and Karai felt a wave of panic sweep her deep into the undertow of it. Something was wrong, very, very wrong. She'd been right in the beginning. This was much bigger than Shredder and the turtles, and because her father had been so focused on revenge they'd failed to see the underlying mutiny that was stead fast and turning into a fairly strong riot. The elevator stalled and went dark, three emergency lights big as hacky sacks came on, shining down and playing off the contours of the turtles' various shades of green.

"No! No this is _not_ going to happen!" as if he were suffering from claustrophobia Raphael jumped high and bounced off the right and left side of the elevator wall, kicking out the panel on the top with one swift motion. He needed air, he needed time, and he needed to go _up_. That's where she was.

"Raph, wait! I have the climbing gear in my bag."

"Quit fucking around and get 'em out already! Toss 'em to me when you got 'em!" he was already scaling the side wall with his sais and pure grit, worry, propelling him. Normally they would cut the elevator cables and ride up like they had the first time but there was no telling what new traps Shredder had installed since the last time.

"We're on floor twenty-eight," Karai pointed out the number as she secured her hold on Leonardo, having little other than that as an option as Donnie had only made so many pairs of hiking gear to begin with. "We must keep going. At the fortieth floor we will meet Gustav and with Chaplin as well."

"Good," Don was scuttling alongside Raphael, diagonal from him. "Maybe he and I can work with April and rig up a quick ride to the top, or at least put the security down."

"I'm not sure how good a use your friend will be this time, Donatello. We've undergone many revisions since your family and my father last collided. Ones even I have no control over for my…lack of morals."

"It is not a lack of morals for which he withholds his information, Karai, but for trust. He knows that you are different from him. The enemy of an enemy is often a friend, and a greater threat, both of which he discourages and cannot afford if such forces join." Splinter was rapidly scaling the wall with his natural rat ability, the animal most often known to scurry in tiny spaces. Karai smiled, keeping her eyes trained for the faint white paint noting the floor numbers.

* * *

Rose had come to and nearly screamed. Stockman, his one good eye full of love and curiosity, stared down at her drenched form and poked her with the less lethal of his two cyborg arms. She was disgusted. What was he? Full robot? How could she love that, how could she even _pretend_ to love that? His dome-covered head swiveled as he bent down to examine her.

"Are you alright?"

"No!" she snapped, wringing the water out of her blonde hair. "That bitch got me with my own taser! Where is she? I swear I-"

"She's been found and is being taken to the Shredder as we speak."

"Take me to him!" demanded Rose, "I want to be there when she dies!" Stockman went to pick the little human up, aware of how his cyborg body wasn't made for gentle touch. "You're right…arm…is warm." Rose looked to the cannon-like apparatus he'd fashioned on his once human body and the black scientist nodded. "What did you do, Stockman?" an expert deceiver Rose dropped her voice low and soft, like some curious and concerned lover.

"I stopped by central control on floor thirty-six and cut the interference a bit."

"Chaplin was in that room!"

"And he still is," assured Stockman, aware of how…_unhealthily _Rose cared for her brother. "I just had to cut his communication with Karai, as he's been helping the rebel crew get to the top."

"They need to be at the top," Rose disagreed with his isolationism idea. "Shredder can have them all, and take them right after they see her go."

"But we're not yet prepared," reminded Stockman. _That's right…_thought Rose. Her second detonator, the secret one, was up in her room on the fifty-eighth floor. The one that had triggered Bishop's collar was destroyed as soon as he was, short circuiting for that one-time use. Her second one, the one connected to Kier Spector and Rilien Spector, was in her room sitting next to her jewelry box as if it were a common place item. This second one was also wired to the security system of the stronghold, so when she pushed it, it _all _went down.

"However, in my…noble weeding efforts to clear the competition the elevator systems were damaged. We'll have to get creative with a new travel route." his right arm buzzed, giving a mechanical whirr and rotated once as it gave off a yellow glow. He was going to blast a hole both ways. Yellow plasma burst from the cannon arm with the crack of a speeding car finally passing by an open window, a duration of two seconds or so to the ear, but the pair got to watch the fiery yellow ball barrel through levels of Shredder's tower. Stockman gave a small chuckle as the rumble signaled the cannon blast hitting the very bottom of the basement floor, the once bright flare of the raw energy died in a plume of smoke.

"Guess that thing in the basement is dead, am I right, my dear?"

"Possibly, I wouldn't undermine it."

"Now…let's make us a skylight." Stockman pointed the cannon arm to the ceiling above and fired it off once again. A light layer of rubble fell into Rose's ruined hair, and tinkled against Stockman's metallic armor. He sidestepped the larger falling pieces finally breaking off the main structure as she watched the mesmerizing glow fade away into nothingness as it cut large, jagged holes in the above floors and shot off into the sky. Stockman jumped once, letting the jet pack take over and sustain his floating form as he rocketed up the floors. This time Shredder was going to suffer the embarrassing punishments, not him.

* * *

Gustav slid to a stop on his hooves, the momentum of his charge bringing him a mite closer to what was now a smoking hole in the thirty-sixth floor he was on. Stockman shot through it soon after, the unmistakable blonde form of his tease in the robotic arms of his. For a second or two Gustav stood to tremble at the invention and just gawked. A man had fully given his body, his normal appearance, for one purpose that may very well be unattainable. With the echo of Stockman fading fainter still he turned back to his objective: Rilien Spector.

The thirty-sixth floor looked like a tornado had torn through it. Bits of shattered glass and what looked to be scorch marks littered the back wall (_the end of a projection path?_ wondered Gustav after seeing Stockman's new form). Computers lay in tiny, smashed pieces thrown across the room like trash. "Rilien? Rilien where are you? Are you alright?" there wasn't much to the room as far as cantankerous technology, just a few bolted-down laser splitters, a computer, and juvenile lab equipment.

"I'm over here…agh…" he heard the grunt of pain and swiveled to his left. Beneath the tall, crumpled form of a laser that had been ripped by the screws from the nearby table Rilien lay. He didn't look too bad for being in the room with whatever had made the scorch marks. Scratched by some of the glassy debris, a gash to his upper left eyebrow, but those facial wounds paled in comparison to his leg. It appeared as if the laser had wrapped around his leg like a cobra, and the leg itself was bent at a bad angle, sticking out and wrapping around it like an 'L'. His right leg flared with pain at the slightest movement, and Rilien resisted the urge to howl by biting into his lip deeply.

He needed to get up and help, to let Gustav help him. He needed to get up so he could save his niece's life! "Rilien…let me help you…" Gustav whispered gently. Being as gentle as possible, fighting the urge to pause every time a twinge racked his friend's grotesque leg (which he paused sometimes, as a reflex) Gustav was able to pry the general shape of what was once a laser from his friend's leg. "Shit…" he muttered. One large, nail-shaped piece had pierced through the tender structure of his ankle, looking like a gag arrow that people would wear on Halloween for how symmetrical the damage appeared.

"I'm afraid you've been rendered incapacitate-"

"No, I'm not. Help me up. I've got to get to the Shredder. That's where the fight's happening and that's where Rose will be with her detonator."

"Are you certain? Do you even know what you're doing?"

"_Yes, _Gustav, I do. This is a "flesh wound" as my brother would say. Now come, we need to get to the top. Stockman must've made some access way by now with that suit of his."

"He has," confirmed the bull.

"Good, let's use it. We don't have much time left."

"Just what are you planning to do, Rilien?"

"Let's just say it'll be a bang." Gustav cradled Rilien in one arm like a baby and supported the injured leg as best he could. The bull backtracked and went up four floors, keeping an eye out for the enemies that seemed, at this point, to not exist. There was an eerie tension in the air. "The soldiers on the thirty-sixth floor left over an hour ago. Some sort of conference at the very top."

"They're gearing up for the turtles. Like the last stand…"

"More than likely. At any rate we've got to get to the top."

"WAIT!" a voice cried out. Rilien froze inside. Was it an enemy? Did they miss one somehow and now the said enemy was using the guise of pain long enough to distract and terminate them? How cruel of irony it was to let them get this far and then expire. Nope…it was Chaplin!

He seemed to be in better repair than Rilien. Donning heavier cuts and scrapes than the other scientist Chaplin had flecks of glass gleaming in his clothes and the skin near his neck, his left arm pressed beneath his stomach tightly. Gustav snorted, flaring his nostrils. _ENEMY! _all of his senses cried, _ENEMY! _He raised his hand, clearly fixing to backhand the wounded all the way to the back wall.

"No, please!" Chaplin grunted weakly. "I'm a friend. I lost my communication with Karai. Stockman knew I…he…I think he got me pretty good." the scientist lifted his shirt to show a blackish-purple bruise and drooping skin. Whatever Stockman had hit him with, assuming it was the plasma goop, was causing his skin to literally become so tender it couldn't stay connected to the firmer skin the plasma hadn't touched in grazing him. He'd been nine or ten inches from the charred circle decorating the back wall of floor thirty-six when the plasma blast finally died out, with no momentum left to break the wall since it had been a low resolution blast.

The heat of it had been what scorched him. Had it been direct contact he'd probably be looking at his organs right now as they pulsated, barely allowing him to live. "I'll say…" Rilien whispered to his once-pupil. "Come on Gustav, we'll take him as well. Maybe he can talk Rose out of her nonsense."

"Her nonsense?"

"She's gone completely mad. Like _Rose Madder_."

"If she's delusional enough to compare to a Stephen King novel then we're probably past the point of no return."

"As it stands, if we don't try, we all go down."

"Then let's go say hello to Rose while we've still got our heads."

* * *

"Look, there he is!" Mikey pointed to Gustav crawling through the third large hole they'd encountered in the floor since climbing out of the elevator. That rumbling could've very well been some sort of bomb; the elevator had shielded them from the initial mayhem that caused a wide ring to appear on every floor.

"Chaplin! What on earth happened to you?" Karai ran to her lover, watching him slide less than gracefully off of Gustav's back, releasing himself with his good arm. "Why…what's wrong with your stomach? Here, let me have a look."

"I'm gonna blow chunks…" Mikey groaned, turning away almost as fast as he spied the sight. What had been a large welt on Chaplin's stomach was now a splitting hole of skin hanging down like a loose flap to flow large amounts of blood and hint at his stomach. Similar groans of displeasure came from the sight. Donnie lifted his hand to his eyes, finding the sight worse than what he initially suspected Chaplin would show them, Raph squeezed his eyes shut for a brief second, then opened them again, and Leo's shoulders just hardened and squared. This was all too serious now.

"This is the weaponry that Stockman has…look what it's capable of!"

"What the shell is that from?" Don asked incredulously, unable to _not _watch the organs beat and pulse as Chaplin continued to live. Apparently the wound was only mild, but would probably worsen since it exposed internal organs. Time was definitely of the essence, more than it had been earlier if such a thing were possible.

"Plasma cannon. It's Stockman's right arm now. He's a complete cyborg now."

"Not to mention a complete nut." Mikey pointed out, getting a sharp crack on the head courtesy of Master Splinter's walking stick. A beeping filled the air and the group looked around wildly. Was it an alarm? A weapon charging up? Were they all about to die?

"The timer…" Don whispered, looking to his wrist. He had it set in sync with the six hours Shredder gave them to get to the top of the tower.

"Guys…we have thirty minutes left."

"Let's move. If we can't scale…what, thirty-eight floors in thirty minutes we shouldn't be ninjas." Raphael grunted to them as he leapt off of Mikey's shell and clutched the breaking floor crust of the ring and sprang up into the next floor. His brothers and allies followed, making a snake-like chain constantly grabbing and linking as they scaled the floor, like a perpetual cycle. Raphael thought of nothing but Maeleyn as he climbed, more often than not using Gustav's back as a spring board. It was as if he could read Donnie's face as his watch counted down.

_Twenty eight minutes…twenty minutes…fifteen… _his mind raced helplessly as they scaled the floors and took time-consuming stair detours when hopping through the debris rings looked too unstable for all of them to go through.

"Ten minutes…" he heard Donnie warn as they passed the sixty-third floor. Their lungs ached, their legs ached. _Family, family_, Raphael kept hearing, as if the broken building around him was talking to him. Motivating him. _Got to get there for your family!_

"I'm coming…" he panted, "I'm coming." his arms felt like iron weights but if he could hold her, then he wouldn't hurt anymore. If he at least got to kiss her, one last time, then all the pain would be worth it. Hell, if he got to kiss her one last time all that pain wouldn't exist. It would just be her, her last memory…their last kiss.

"Five minutes…" he lost himself in the automatic cycle of jumping up, running, jumping up, running. His feet were numb and hardly anything but Donatello's voice and the direction of his surrounding kin registered. The number seventy-nine passed him. Only nine floors left! "Woah, back up! Back up!" Don pushed Mikey away from the hole, as he would've slipped in first, when the hurtling figure barely recognized as Hun smashed through their level, falling down two more before emitting a groan, suspected to have caught himself at last.

"The stairs, my son, we cannot afford to be taken back to the bottom."

"But that'll waste more time!" Raphael objected, running with the rest of them to the stairs at the far right of the room.

"The stairs, Raphael, we cannot afford to fall such great lengths." they ran as fast as they could. Mikey was only five inches or so ahead, naturally faster than the rest. Master Splinter was maybe an inch before him. Raphael chugged with the persistence of a steam engine yet to stop, panting strongly like a galloping stallion as he met Leonardo in pace and raced up the sixth set of stairs.

The reassuring off-rhythm canter of Gustav was not too far behind. "One minute!" Don couldn't help but cry as they finished the last stretch. _I'm coming Maeleyn. Hold on, hold on baby. I'm right there with you, _thought Raphael as the skid into the eighth level of stairs, hoping rails, sides, and steps much to Splinter's fatherly displeasure, but time was of the essence. Finally, the door he'd been trying to reach all night was before him, a majestic rice-paper door, closed, but wide as two fine French doors.

"AHHH! AHH! AH GET OFF OF ME YOU SON OF A BITCH! AHHH!" his heart flipped in his chest. God. He'd never forget that scream. It wasn't a weak horror scream, it was a _blood-curdling _scream of sheer pain. Instantly the worst images jumped to mind. Was he boiling her alive? Skinning her? He remembered the Shredder daring to say his father would be used as a pelt, and he wouldn't put it past him to make some alligator boots to put on the rat rug at night.

Electrocution? The 'Death by a Thousand Cuts' torture method? Sheer splitting her alive by katana?

"MAELEYN!"

"ARRRGHHH! RAPH! _RAPHAEL_!"

He slid on his plastron, rocketing his body towards the door and tucked his head under, intending to roll through the weak material. _Shrip! _Raphael spilled into the room, stopping his wild slide by rolling to his side, his out-thrown legs and shell creating friction against the polished wood floor. The Shredder laughed down at him with a blood drenched gauntlet as Leonardo cut through the weak door, his brothers joining him, and Karai as well.

The smell of an open wound and singed skin reached his nose. Had he burnt her? Raphael wasn't sure if that had made his list of mental images or not. He felt his pulsating, aching lungs fill deep with breathes of rage and he seethed. His enemy dared to laugh at him as he totally lost himself like once feared he would, to his temper. There was no stopping him now, he would give in to that rage, to that monster, and unleash hell. Maeleyn looked so still…so peaceful…

Her onyx hair was fanned out, forced away from her bleeding back-all he could see was blood, ruby red blood on her pretty paling asparagus skin-and she was so still. Like a pretty doll only napping on the floor, one hand tucked beneath her left cheek, her head turned towards the door, snout to the floor in a lazy droop, and the other out to her side. She looked like she had been clutching the leg of the short and only table in his office, white claw marks evident near the bottom of it.

"You're too late."


	19. Chapter 19

Enigma

**AN: It's been said before but this time I mean it, there's only a few chapters left! After this one there's one final one, a wrap up. I'll be starting Jezebelle's story the day I finish Maeleyn's if not the day after since I wrote down the plot, have it saved in a word document, and on an AIMlogger folder since a friend helped me piece my bits together. A big, gracious thank you to **Scribe of Turesa **and **DieselPhoenix **for the reviews to chapter eighteen :). Much appreciated! **

**I figured this was long overdue and I'll submit a chapter since **_Nerd Support _**(if you like Donnie that's a revolving P.O.V story of one shots you might want to read)****has been given a bit too much attention by me just because I want to get it off the ground. This is the second part of chapter eighteen, I cut it roughly in half because of all the action and such. WARNING: MULTIPLE DEATHS IN THIS CHAPTER. Fight scene going off of "Return to New York, Part 3" in the 2003 version because I couldn't think of a better way to stage multi-person confrontation and chaos.**

**Enjoy!**

Raphael felt something in him snap, and it wasn't healthy. He drew in deep, labored breathes almost as if he were fighting off hyperventilation and clutched his sais ferociously, his slightly rounded turtle claws cutting crescent moons in his green palm. No. No…he was lying! Shredder had to be lying! But she was so peaceful, so still.

"Maeleyn…babe? Get up, c'mon, get up." he begged. Raph hated begging, hated feeling weak but this was his girlfriend! His mate. Shredder hoisted the half-sized turtle shell with pride, threads of asparagus green skin hanging off around the side. Had that same brutality that put her shell in his hands been what had killed her? Raphael felt sick, staring at the shell that never full grew, never fully exited her back, and paled at the sight of fresh, bloodied skin hanging off the sides where it had once been attached to her mid-back.

Shredder snapped his fingers and Hun walked up, the big blonde brute, and dumped what looked to be a cauldron of icy water on Maeleyn's body to wash away the blood. Weak red water ran in strong rivulets away from the wound on Maeleyn's back and suddenly her body began to spasm. Raphael felt his heart leap for joy and he almost lost it, deranged enough to laugh and cry that his mate had lived through a literal de-shelling. "Don't do that!" cried Donatello, "you'll make her go into shock!" Leo and the others were beginning to understand what had occurred, instead of just being naturally shocked, saddened, by the sight of the first female turtle they'd seen in their whole lives look so dead.

Saki never had candles on his little table; candles weren't the usual source of light in his empire of a building. "It was once thought to be the most unbearable, shaming punishment, tattooing." Gustav said, watching Maeleyn shiver, twitch, and lift her head up to look at Raphael. Her eyes glittered with happy tears, but she felt too cold, too stiff, to even speak, or reach for him.

"Reserved for criminals and rebels…" Don finished, remembering that tattooing was once a part of Japanese history, specifically during the time period where rebelling against feudal lords were popular.

"You know your history, Donatello." cheered Shredder in his gravelly monotone before he turned his red eyes to the stirring Maeleyn on the floor. "However, I'm not done tattooing the rebel yet. She will know true pain when I am done…" a second candle, one that wasn't slanted with a melted crust about a burnt wick, turned the tip of a needle orange-red in the yellow light. Raphael refused to wait any longer to not act on her behalf. The hot needle hissed as he dipped it into the cool ink well sitting beside the extinguished candle and the Shredder withdrew it, the silver drenched in black coat. Almost to her skin, intending to write something degrading in the Japanese he'd picked up throughout his life on earth the Shredder never got to pierce the soft flesh again, hoping to add on to the black stripe running down her back from when he first began to tattoo her. A new voice stopped him.

"We must oppose that last statement," said Rose Chaplin with a flick of her beautiful but messy hair over her shoulder. She twined both human arms around the one dormant arm of Stockman the cyborg like a busty whore of a school girl sticking by her man to the 'n' th degree.

"It is my belief, Shredder," Stockman took his entrance from Rose's introduction, "that you are unfit to show any of them what true pain is until you experience it. You administer it, but can you _survive _it? I, Baxter Stockman, will educate you on what it means to be truly punished…" without warning, perhaps having paused for dramatic effect in what was the epic last scene of this horrendous play in his mind, Stockman raised the humming plasma cannon. Having seen what damage that arm could do from Chaplin's wound Raphael thought nothing of snatching Maeleyn to him and rolling towards his brothers, his body atop hers in order to fully protect her. Rolling had saved him from getting a lethal brush from the weapon but his bandanna tails hadn't been so lucky. The knot of his mask was smoking, gradually turning to flames at the back of his head, but Leo snatched it off in frantic worry, seeing the beginnings of those flames, and tossed it to a different part of the room.

He would not lose his brother over a flaming mask. If they died tonight, they died with honor. With or without their protective gear, or their masks. "You fool!" the Shredder spat as he recovered slowly, grasping the east wall as he removed himself from the obvious crater of it, "you dare to strike me? Obviously I haven't taught you what fear means!" the chest of his armor sparked and crackled, the plasma cannon scorching it on contact and hitting hard enough in the weaker engravings to cause the alien technology to give some leeway. The turtles had yet to strike, save for Raphael's rescue move and they wondered if it would be smart to intervene.

At some point they knew they would, but Shredder's obvious plan of choice was to eliminate Stockman first, as he was the biggest threat. His chest continued to spark as Stockman laughed and turned to him. "I spared no expense," he purred happily, "I'm ready for anything you throw…" two additional arms unfolded from hollow pockets and snapped, clanked, at the Shredder. The Shredder retreated a couple of steps before foolishly attempting to attack his improved adversary head on.

Raphael scooped Maeleyn up bridal style and carried her to the back wall, where, for the moment, it was safest. The kamas clanked against his lower chest and he knelt to face her. "Here," he said louder than he would when talking to her, unsure of how conscious she was for what she'd gone through, "hold on to these." forcefully wrapping her shaking green fingers around her weapons he patted her face, grasping it to bring her almost sleepy eyes to him.

"Don't let them go, Maeleyn. Those are your weapons. You're not done yet, we're not done. You still got fight left in you." her weapons clanked within her hands and she nodded. She understood. The Shredder had left only wisps of her bandanna connected to the two inches poking out from the knot. He'd almost taken the Hamato symbol from her, but somehow she'd managed to salvage it. That, for some odd reason, maybe because it represented his family, his father, convinced him he and his brothers needn't wait for an introduction to the fight, they should make one.

He turned back to the fight, watching Stockman's thick chord tendons shoot out to let the large hand that could clutch Hun like a doll grasp the Shredder and spin him like a top about the room before flinging him into the very throne he once sat in at the back of the room. The tapestry displaying the Foot symbol collapsed on him and Stockman emitted a maniacal giggle, shooting off three more missiles to create more ruble piles or convince any nearby Foot soldiers come to aid their leader not to interfere. Don wisely deflected them from any ninjas (really there or in hiding) and sent them up into the rafters so the building would continue to lose its structure and sag. _If I can make it collapse, _thought Donatello, _we may have a chance of getting out of here alive, even if he does try to catch us at the end. We have allies now, we stand alone no more._

The mouthpiece of the headset he wore to stay in touch with April pressed against his lips as he gave a battle cry, fending off what were left of the Elite guards as Stockman doused the room in a spray of energetic fire from one of the new arms. It seems that he, too, had a mind to make the building fall and take his enemies with it. _This should work, _Don thought. It logically should, he'd made it, built it in to his computer system…

"Engage protocol Script Writer." he yelled into the mouth piece, cuing the long-ago voice recorded commands to control his computer. "Open document. Write. April, check and see if the schematics updated. We may need a way out. Check for any vehicle oriented rooms still in use, and map the perimeter for easiest escape. We've got one severely wounded, and one maniac on the loose…"

* * *

April typed furiously on Donnie's computer, the natural relaxation she felt being in the turtles' home, wrapped in their familiar and unique smells all gone in the heat of the moment. It took everything she had not to pull her own hair out. She'd set her headset nearby, the first handful of explosions too loud for her ears to take, she was still dealing with the echoes. Finally, at last when all Casey could do was stand there, shrug, and offer support to people who couldn't hear them, she got a hold of herself and took her nails from her mouth to work again. The schematics, thanks to Stockman being a science and security officer, alternated between any of twenty patterns every ten minutes so she was constantly reloading a Trojan program, dictionary accounts, and firewall algorithms to stay inside the layout of the building.

Red dots exploded over the top floor like a chicken pox infestation. Action, intense warmth, bodies, everything that had heat was noted by a dot. She zoomed in on the top floor and employed a short code to see if anything of greater detail was available. Blueprints of Stockman's form emerged after eight walls of cracked code and she skimmed the unified pieces, realizing in horror each weapon of destruction had two different sets of backup power to make the thirty-nine patents on the suit truly terrifying.

Loading another sequence of code she was able to get a DNA reading from the people in the room, a form of intruder detection that Stockman had put in, just like back at Stocktronics. She blew a sigh of relief. All six mutants still very much alive, seven if she counted Gustav. The screen went dark and her heart flopped, she thought the system had crashed. "No!" she cried desperately, shaking the sides with her white knuckles as if she were rattling a lost quarter in a vending machine, "No! Don't do this! I-what?" she slowly pulled her hands back from the screen, aware of the warmth of Casey's large hands clutching the back of her chair to the point of her feet not being able to touch the ground, the chair elevated.

"It's…Donnie…" bemused, she trailed her eyes over the bold, capitalized text.

"…**APRIL, CHECK AND SEE IF THE SCHEMATICS UPDATED. WE MAY NEED A WAY OUT. CHECK FOR ANY VEHICLE-ORIENTED ROOMS STILL IN USE, AND MAP THE PERIMETER FOR EASIEST ESCAPE. WE'VE GOT ONE SEVERELY WOUNDED, AND ONE MANIAC ON THE LOOSE… "**

Dutifully she went back to the computer to do as Don had asked. Her mind leapt and whirled crazily at what had been said. Someone was wounded? Who? How bad? But all of her spots were still red! "Oh God…" she breathed, "I hope you guys know what you're doing. I hope you're alright…"

"Believe me April, they're fine. Master Splinter's with 'em and Raph's pissed as hell. There's nothing that can stop them." _not the most eloquent in the world, _April barely found herself thinking as she reached blindly for one of his big hands with her right one, swiveling her torso without taking her eyes off the screen. _But somehow…that helps…_

Almost done with the perimeter search, which showed hollow cavities in a nearby, connected extension apart from the room the turtles were in, there seemed to be nothing else. Just to be safe, knowing Stockman, knowing her gut feeling, she went to do a second sweep. The screen went black again, and this time she panicked less, thinking it would be Donatello. She was wrong. Bold and slanted a new message showed up, one that filled her with hope, especially after hearing about Rilien's last e-mail in which the riddle and quest for Otis Redding originated.

_**This is Jeeters and Kirkland of the U.S. Navy. The Hawk has landed. Repeat, the Hawk has landed. Signal of the disrupted collar picked up. Security lines are down. The fortress is weak. To Rilien, to the hacker, we hope this helps. May God be with you.**_

April grinned happily. "Don," she spoke into the headpiece, "I don't know if you can hear me but I have good news. Looks like you guys have one more outside ally coming to help you. I'm not sure how but he'll be there…"

* * *

His hands were sweaty, and he trembled. Jeeters and Kirkland had took three hours and fifty eight minutes of his four last hours combing over the code to make sure no one could mess this up. It was his last chance. If this didn't work, he would die. _One last text message, _Kier thought, _just in case I go_. He scrolled to the latest one, opening it as he swallowed. This WILL work, it promised, just insert the chip like you did last time and the virus will open the release. Trust us, admiral.

With nothing left to do but trust his phone, his stomach sour with hope and fear, he shut it off. He wiped his sweaty palms on his bare legs; having given up clothes long ago in the useless hell hole Shredder had dumped him, and opened up the back of his phone for the tiny chip hardly bigger than his fingertip. His mouth was dry and he fought the shaking, his mind giving all sorts of alarms to remind him he only had two minutes left to live, to save his life. Kier inserted the chip as beads of sweat raced over and around his eyebrows, and he prayed his fingers wouldn't slip on the chip or that it wouldn't fall out if his fingertips happened to rub together and slip. For what felt like his last two minutes he stood there.

_Click! _the collar literally snapped from his neck, widening and slipping forward off his body. He kicked the device towards the front door and ran towards the back of the room to hide behind the two large crates. His first thought was to _not _hide behind them because the generated inertia and force of the explosion might cause the crates to rocket back towards the wall and crush him but ultimately he decided hiding behind the crates and holding his head was much better than standing out in the open. Besides, the thought had occurred to him during the last two hours of life, Bishop wouldn't want anything messy so the force behind the collar should only be enough to kill him, not destroy a whole scene. With his hands clamped over his ears Kier awaited the worst, elbows to the concrete to gauge the rumble of the explosive.

He hadn't looked at the collar before kicking it near the door but he knew he didn't have long to wait before something would happen. A rumbling swept under his elbows and his hands pressed harder into his ears, able to hear a bold _boom! _despite slight volume control and he pulled his head up after it stopped. Flecks of broken, charred wood, iron, and a melted iron rod still orange and hot littered the room. Brushing bits of debris from his hair he analyzed from afar what was left of the door that had kept him in the room, and over turned bits and pieces curiously, just _why _hadn't he been able to escape in the first place, anyways?

Nearest the iron rod half was a hunk of the metal separated into tinier pieces near the crates. He turned it over in his hands, careful not to touch the lukewarm metal. A key slit. He hadn't been able to break out because there was no key! Another thought occurred to him and he cursed. Kier hadn't taken the chip for his phone out with him when he tossed the collar so how was he supposed to let anyone know he was okay?

"Well fuck…" he kicked one of the crates, cursing and hissing soon after. Stupid thing to do to a large crate! To his surprise the lid of the crate he kicked gave a groan and fell off. _The blast must've weakened the hinges, or compromised the lid, _he thought, peering inside to see the contents at last. Before he got too swept in to looking at one crate he checked to see if the lid on the other one had come off, too, and it had. Now he could look at the items in both and see just what this place had been, and what things previous workers, owners, _people _had left behind.

In the first there was a rather dusty but still functional medical kit (_I'm lucky,_ he thought) for whoever used to run the dock crew, a large drag net for the stationed boats to catch fish, or maybe back up nets they could layer their catch with, a tackle box with hooks, materials to patch sails, life preservers, and a boxed inflatable raft. Kier piled the miscellaneous objects outside of the crate and brushed the crate bottom to make sure he hadn't missed anything. Grimacing at the dead roaches that had been killed by who knew what in there before he was added to the room, he was happy to find an old harpoon hiding under the repair material for sails. "I'm keeping this." he said aloud, analyzing the condition of the harpoon and wondering if the second crate had any spears to put in it.

If he was going to fight the Shredder he better have something to fight him with. Rose and Hun had taken the guns he'd usually strapped to his body, so he had little option but to take what he'd found. Life preservers were definitely coming, too. He wasn't sure if he'd trust his body without two days of food or water in him. Kier moved to the second crate curiously. Bright white smocks, overalls, and rubbery boots met his eyes with a vengeful brightness. Of course, one of these crates had to be the 'clothes' bin!

Kier pulled them out, setting the contents of the second to the right of the second crates as to not mix the piles. Clothes upon clothes came out of it. He was thinking there'd be little else in it! Beneath the mound of white clothes an emergency kit surfaced, sunset orange against the white. He opened it. Flares, air horn, flash light, batteries, and mayday pouch water.

Frowning, seeing no harpoon accessories to speak of Kier thought long and hard for a moment as he decided to steal and mix the clothes so he could walk out into society covered. The last thing he needed was to be reported by someone for exposure to the public and detained when shit was hitting the fan up in a different part of Manhattan! After stepping into new, dry—but stinky—clothes Kier opened the ancient medical kit seeing a handwritten notice at the top. _Doc. Albert's kit, _it read, _get your fuckin' hands out my kit! You don't know what you're doin' in it! Get your own damn kit and mess around with it, not mine! _Maybe there had been boundary issues back when the warehouse was alive, or maybe 'Doc. Albert' had been a very good but very suspicious old sea doctor that hated people messing with his things.

The ointment was old but it was better than nothing to put on his nasty wound. It burned, and he hoped that was a good sign. It certainly smelled like a strong, good medicine. Looking at the empty, almost hungry harpoon he decided to fashion a spear to go in it. He had the material around him to do so! Picking up the half of the iron rod Kier walked outside, shouldering the strap for the gun as he looked around for people along the docks. None. It was near two in the morning now, and there probably wouldn't be any sea-goers until a few hours later…good…he had time to work.

Slight guilt slipped into him as he broke a nearby fishing rod posted along the bait shack two docks down. That would give his 'spear' some length. Wrapping it to the rod with fishing line for the moment he walked back into the warehouse to fish out the tackle box. Fashioning a better hold from the adjustable strap of pair of overalls he tied the two pieces together, winding more fishing line around the white cloth to adorn it with hooks pointing opposite of him – right at the oncoming enemy. Though he had nothing to be the lethal tip of his spear it would still be painful to encounter, and that made him swell with pride for his makeshift weapon.

Before totally abandoning the warehouse Kier checked the medical kit, dragged it closer to his leg to take it with him, and checked the flares and flare gun. That would be a really good weapon. He slid it into the empty holster where his standard issue gun once rested and felt a little more prepared, a little more confident. Locking the latches on the medical kit he stood, the loaded harpoon hanging off his left shoulder and the medical kit in one hand he started off in the hot rubber boots towards the boat idling in the rocking waters next to the bait shack. _Hold on Maeleyn, daddy's coming!_

He wouldn't be a very good older brother of a genius if he didn't know how to hotwire a few things. The engine sputtered, groaned, and began to purr deeply as he pulled himself up from the small space beneath the steering wheel of the tiny boat. The four total fishing rod holders were bare, and hard, bolted on lengths of plastic. Hopefully this boat would be big enough, good enough, to take whatever good survivors out of the mess occurring in Saki's tower. Detaching it from the dock and bait shack Kier took off, riding the waves and feeling the sea beat against the boat, the boat itself occasionally skipping the waves.

_Get ready to suffer, for what you've done to me, and my daughter! No one pisses off a U.S. Marine! Especially when that marine's a Spector! _

By boat it took roughly thirty minutes until he was staring up at the swiftly burning mess that was Saki Tower. The building face was cracked and burning, oozing smoke, with the whole east side now gone, like something had just ripped off that side. Blindly he felt around, hoping the little boat had binoculars, like any good fisherman would keep on him, and he put them to his eyes the instant he felt them. Through the binoculars he saw a horrible battle; everyone inside was going crazy! At the moment he could count one blonde woman, a large blonde man, a huge robot, what looked to be some sort of turtle with a blue thing on his head, a rat, and another smaller metal thing all jabbing at each other like some sort of feeding frenzy.

"My god…" he breathed.

What lights still looked to be on and glowing on the lower levels of the massive tower suddenly whirred, struggling to stay consistently bright. The building blinked and Kier pulled the binoculars back to view the spectacle. Jeeters and Kirkland must've really screwed up the security like they promised! Good, maybe that would give the turtle fellow the advantage. He hoped that thing was a turtle, and he hoped it knew his daughter (_God please let her be alive!_ he prayed as he thought that) and was keeping her safe. It looked to be a mad house in there!

He couldn't bear to lose his warrior princess, not whenever he'd just been given a new lease on life!

* * *

With the Shredder currently on his back skidding to a stop before the turtles Rose found her moment. Too "nice" for battle she walked up to Hun and tapped him on the shoulder. The large man turned around. She backhanded him with all she had, a look of fury on her face. Stockman was already in on the action, it's time she join him. "That's for being a kiss ass!" she spat at him.

Hun glowered at her, his large, meaty hands poised like claws atop his head. He lifted her with ease, contemplating throwing her down the large crater in the center of the room that Stockman's body had caused. As he was about to drop her the large cyborg came upon him, grabbing him by the waist and hoisting him in the air before slamming him into a thick support beam still managing to stand. The force of Stockman's surprised grab caused Hun to lose his grip on Rose, she tumbled backward onto the once smooth floor of Saki's office that was now ridden with smoldering piles, broken beams, cracks, and smoke escaping out the open east side of the building. Her head cracked against the concrete and she shook the dark splotches out of her vision vigorously; it had to be done, now!

Shredder was so close to the turtles, she could take them all out! Rummaging swiftly in her pocket her hands clasped around the device, ready to pull it out of her pocket and press. Saki had other plans, though he may not know what she had in her pocket he knocked her back towards the elevator on the west wall that had been temporarily suspended for a security measure and she groaned. He freed Hun and she stood weakly; there went her moment! "Damn fool!" she hissed angrily, wiping a trickle of blood from her lip where she had bitten herself on impact with the elevator door.

"Stockman," Rose demanded, shouting across the chaos, "send him back to the turtles!" and her loyal pet did so, sending the Shredder on his back a second time, this time putting him down a little bit longer. Having grabbed the Shredder with his large, metal hands Stockman inadvertently widened the sparking split of his armor, his metallic fingers digging in like worms into the exosuit. The turtles looked down at the Shredder, the eyes of his suit flickering. Just a hint of something pink beyond the suit was exposed, and they decided to act. If Stockman could do that to an _Utrom _exoskeleton he could do much worse to reptilians with no fancy guard.

Donnie and Mikey gave each other a nod. The two brothers through grappling hooks at the large feet of Stockman's new body and watched the thick rope twin in opposite circles around him, creating a nice, strong layer about his feet. "You try to stop me with rope?" Stockman laughed at their stupidity, "How primitive!"

"I got your primitive right here!" Raphael did a leaping kick and hit the chest of the large robot which caused Stockman to stumble on his contained feet and fall back into the very hole he'd made getting to the top floor. Down, down he fell until a muffled crash met the air, a small rumble of impact occurring under foot. For a moment, all was silent and still as the other fighters—Rose, Chaplin, Karai, the Shredder, Gustav—looked to see if the turtles had really gotten rid of him. The fighting quickly resumed.

Shredder crouched low, ready to spring across the gap and swing his gauntlet at any of the four of them that had collected curiously around the hole. Seconds before leaping Stockman reemerged from the hole, cackling evilly as he displayed the jet pack on the back of the robot. "I'm not so easy to dismiss." he explained gleefully. "Kiss your shells goodbye!" the arm with the flame thrower rotated, clicked, and whirred giving them the hint they needed to dodge fast. A toasty line of strong fire shot out from the arm and he laughed happily as they scattered like bugs.

Leo leapt high, using the distraction of Stockman watching the fire, and raised his katana above his head. With a cry he came down upon the roulette cannon arm and sent his sharp katana through the weaker wires acting as joints for the robot body pieces. Stockman cried out in horror at the sight of the arm laying near his foot, crackling with electricity. He hadn't calculated that! The bonds should've been stronger! _The heat…the heat! _he realized as the situation finally set in on him, and it dawned on him that he wasn't as invincible as he'd once thought.

The heat he'd made to cook his enemies, to compromise the building, was actually weakening and melting the unprotected chords between the pieces of his arms. Refusing to let the "momentary nuisance" phase him Stockman fired at Leo with his missal arm, the turtle thrown back on his shell near the west wall with a grunt. Shredder tore his focus from the turtles, running to slice off Stockman's left robotic leg at the weak chord joint. Stockman stumbled back, the large body flailing, and managed to keep his balance before landing out the open east end. Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael charged at him, performing a unison leaping kick to send the robot off the edge at last and down to the concrete below.

Was he gone? He should be. That was a really long fall. Once again the Shredder turned to face the turtles, the only real enemy of concern. Leo was more than ready to finish the fight, motioning Shredder to start with his hand. The Shredder lunged low, fixing to dart up with a raised gauntlet but flecks of glass and chips of rubble from the compromised side exploded in the center of the new, miniature battlefield. Stockman was floating, again, this time on more jet pack use than before.

"Each component of my cyborg armor has an individual backup system." Stockman purred happily, launching more explosive missals as a demonstration, sending the Shredder and the turtles scattering. Donnie realized, then, what the answer was.

"Leo, the power cells on his back!" his elder brother weaved swiftly in and out of the missals now seeking to destroy him as Stockman fired ruthlessly. He would not be outdone by Donatello Hamato! The elder brother leapt high over Stockman's dome-protected head and sent his katanas in a criss-cross pattern at the back of the robot. Sputtering, crackling with electricity, the robot collapsed to the floor. Mikey grinned cattily.

"Finally," cheered the youngest brother, "shut him down and shut him up!" one last time Stockman rose, firing the last set of missals he possessed. Mikey hit the beam at the back of the room with a groan. Don strode over to the abandoned roulette cannon arm and propped it up.

"So when you said every component had a backup system it applied to this too, right?" Stockman turned to the intelligent terrapin. After he saw the glinting weapon he immediately hopped on his one remaining foot towards the east wall, attempting to get away. "Fire in the hole!" Don cried, Raph and Mikey diving clear of the weapon behind him as a barrage of fiery-looking beams shot out of the cannon. Like a firework Stockman was propelled high into the sky at the head of a blazing orange mess. The brothers and the Shredder watched out the open east wall as the "firework" exploded to look like a bright, brilliant star against the coming dawn.

"Now," Shredder growled to the four five able mutants, "let's finish this."

* * *

Rilien hobbled quickly over towards the elevator, Chaplin following. The two men had very different mindsets, however, as they met Rose at the elevator. Rilien wanted that remote detonator, and Chaplin wanted to talk to his sister. The woman who had been his sister…this…lust for power had changed her. Somewhere in him, logically, he knew he loved her as a sister, and somewhere inside of her he knew his sister lived, the one he remembered from his childhood.

But on the outside he was disgusted with her, she was a murderer, she'd made murder with her own hands (so had he, Chaplin would admit, but this had gone too far). "Rose, are you okay?" Chaplin offered his robotic hand, the stronger one, to help her up. She scowled at him, smacking his hand away and standing on her own.

"Don't sweet talk me Chaplin!" Rose snapped, "I want nothing to do with you! I'm done with you!" surprising both her brother and herself Rose gave him a right-hook. Chaplin groaned, holding his nose. Blood spurted between his fingertips and his nose pulsed with pain; he thought she'd broken it! While Chaplin was recovering from the pain and surprise of his 'dainty' sister breaking his nose Rilien leapt to his defense, knowing he had to get that remote away from her by any means possible.

"You stupid bitch!" he wasted no mannerisms on her, not even courtesy. He grew up with Kier, he knew how to fight! Rose's head snapped back when Rilien's fist made contact with her nose, blood oozing from it. She looked at him and laughed. He hit her again.

The blood from her nose and lip met together, and ran in a ruby red strip down her face. Her smile, still white, glinted through the blood. "Go fetch…" she giggled, glaring daggers at Rilien. Unable to move as fast on his body Rilien watched in horror as a grenade-like objected sailed through the air near Maeleyn at the back wall. There was a _tink_! and suddenly the grenade was up in the air like a deadly 'hot potato', the 'incapacitated' turtle female had hit it hard with her sharp kamas, setting a spin on the airborne weapon.

"Karai! No!" Chaplin didn't care that blood marred his face; he jumped and weaved around piles of debris. He should've known Rose would aim it at either Karai or Maeleyn; since Maeleyn had saved herself he knew, ultimately, Rose would seek to destroy her other enemy. Karai, at the moment, stood to help the turtles pry open the chest of her father's armor with quick, fleeting hits. He elbowed her out of the way of the weapon, jumping over it like a protective cover.

"Chaplin! _CHAPLIN!_" Leonardo tucked Karai under his arm and headed for the no longer burning piles of rubble to shield themselves from the detonation. Raphael pulled Maeleyn, who was just beginning to stand up with the guiding help of the wall, down into the pile with him. The explosion sent new fiery rubble around the room, as well as entrails, blood, and body parts. Karai cried, and it was the first time even Leonardo had seen such a thing.

Her lover…gone…for her. Killed by his own sister. Karai's forlorn sobs echoed loud like a miserable screech across the room. Rilien looked as shocked as Rose. He knew this was the tipping point for the blonde, what hope of return there was, was dashed. She would never be the same.

Rose shook. "Chappy?" she asked weakly, as if it hadn't been him that covered for Karai and now decorated Shredder's room. "Bubba?" tentatively she walked towards what was left of the body; a head and neck. Her sanity had left her at last. Wheeling around fiercely to face the back wall she glowered at the turtles, the rat, and Karai coming out from behind the rubble piles.

"This is your fault, you mutant bitch! This is all your fault!" it really was her fault, hers and her uncle's. If Rilien had never made the synthetic blood they would've never thought to take Maeleyn as collateral, or an experimental hostage. If she wasn't a mutant, if she hadn't been one of the ones to survive, Shredder would've never made such crazy demands and Bishop would've never pinned Chaplin for being an informant because Bishop would've never gotten his hands on any blood to make Gustav. She was the cause for the war, as was he!

"That's my niece you're talking to!" Rilien spun Rose around harshly and kneed her in the stomach. Rose felt the air leave her, and she gave a grunt, holding her stomach with both hands. Her once pretty eyes gave him a dark, eerie look. She grinned at him, blood crusting over her face to give her the look of some deranged cannibal. Rilien dove for her, fighting to separate her hands off her stomach with sheer desperation; she had the detonator in her hands!

Gustav charged over. He realized something, something that had been figured out long ago but could now only be employed. The best way to hurt Rose Chaplin besides taking away her brother, was to separate her from what was left of him. He mule-kicked her off of Rilien when she proved to be choking him, both hands clasped tightly around his neck above the collar. She flew through the air, landing with a sharp _clang! _into the useless elevator.

The detonator slipped from her hands and clattered across the floor next to the elevator. Rose grinned. She'd won. After seeing Stockman explode in the sky, Hun unconscious by the beam, and Chaplin sacrifice himself for Karai she decided there was no need to stay. As long as she had the detonator she could escape and cue the system malfunction from a safe distance. Gustav rammed his thick head into her torso, biting down hard on her hand.

A cry of agony ripped from her throat and she withdrew the hand, cursing the mutant and looking at the mangled connectivity of it on her wrist. The lights flickered in the room and everyone stopped, looking around. Why were they doing that? _Ping! _the elevator opened and she crawled inside without hesitation, Gustav too close for her to make another grab at the detonator. If she couldn't kill anyone at least she'd get out alive, and that's what mattered. Shredder used the weak on and off blackouts to lunge at the turtles, intent on taking one of them down. Gustav turned his head to see the new beginning in the action.

Rose had her chance. The elevator doors were swiftly closing but the bull had his head turned. She could grab the remote and get her hand back in time, the door still having eight inches of space left before the doors met. To her surprise, her horror, the bape stomped down on her hand, grinding the bones a bit beneath his hard hooves. Gustav stared at her with his cold eyes as she tried to jerk her hand from beneath his foot as the doors drew near. Calmly, coolly, he watched her as she struggled.

Now the same cold, unflinching way in which she loved him for her means alone—not for him, for her—would be repaid. He would not save her for her own wants, but for his. And he wanted her dead. She screamed like a broken record player and her hand twitched violently as the elevator doors pinched it in a vice, trying to go down but obviously stopped by something in the way. Her bloodcurdling screams drew long and high in the air, tears obvious in the screeching cry as the bones of her bitten hand finally gave way and left the appendage outside where it had been stuck.

Rilien grimaced as he looked down at the severed hand, bits of bone and muscle still bright pink under the flesh of the hand. "Good job, Gustav." he patted the side of the beast. "You've saved us all tonight. At least from the biggest threat…"

"We still have a threat left." Gustav nodded to the Shredder, whom the turtles were still fighting with decreasing vigor. He seemed to just pursue ruthlessly, without need for air or rest. "Here," the bape pressed the detonator into his friend's hand. "Do what you must."

"Start preparations for the plan. Give me a distraction, and if you can try to open up his chest cavity a little more…" Rilien gave a small nod to the battered exosuit of the Shredder. The bape nodded. He charged across the ruined room and lowered his head, knocking the Shredder into his throne with a snort. That needed recovery would give him enough time to relay the message to Donatello.

"Rilien needs you to go activate the Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk ten floors beneath us. It's been on base since Kier brought it from Bishop. Rilien tweaked the password and override codes. The password is 'serene' and the lock code is zero-three-one-zero-one-nine-nine-one. Go! I'll help your brothers hold him off." promised the bape. Donatello nodded, slipping through the large hole at the center of the room, jumping carefully from ring edge to ring edge as he explored the floor ten floors down, searching for the illusive plane Bishop had taken off atop of April's shop in, with all of them.

At the back of the room, untouched and miraculously tucked away from the damage caused by Stockman coming through the center of the room, sat the Blackhawk. Donnie clambered into the pilot's seat, analyzing the spread of buttons before figuring out how to start it up. He might just keep this and overhaul it for air travel, if he could. Don cocked his head to the side curiously, trying to figure out what made Gustav, or Rilien for that matter, choose such a random selection of numbers. Far too long to be a standard start up code but…maybe he used something of significance that way he couldn't forget it.

"March eighth, nineteen ninety-one…" he muttered, brushing a green finger curiously across the digital screen as he pulled the plane into motion, letting it float through the wide crater Stockman had left and up to the top floor, typing in 'Serene' as he went. What did it mean?

* * *

Maeleyn had enough of standing by. Seeing Chaplin sacrifice himself for Karai, and seeing Gustav risk exposing his softer underbelly to keep Shredder pinned to the throne was enough to convince her how to move. If she could stand a forced walk after being raped she could fight at least a little. She refused to let the boys do all the work. That, and if she got up to fight she may just have the element of surprise, which might help in determining life or death at the hands of this maniac.

Her kamas glinted softly in the strengthening morning light, soft yellow, pink, and purple reflected in them. It was a beautiful scene, but one she hoped to enjoy with her family. In one piece. Gustav sailed across the room, Shredder having kicked him away, a deep bleeding wound to his underbelly courtesy of Shredder's blood-drenched gauntlet. Instead of the slice as she would've suspected, Shredder had stabbed him, leaving two puncture holes like a deadly snake.

_Whomp, whomp, whomp! _Buzzing heartily Donatello darted through the gaping east wall with the helicopter. His aim was satisfactory. Instead of aiming at Shredder with missals like his enemies had Don was focusing on the tear in the exosuit that, over the course of the battle, had exposed the small controlling cavity in which the alien Utrom Ch'rell hid in. The landing skid on the right side of the Blackhawk jabbed into the chest wound and Don grinned behind the enclosed windshield. He flew up into the air, dragging the curing Shredder with him, waiting for gravity or the flailing of the enemy Utrom to widen the hole in the armor.

After ten seconds of flailing, of slashing at the landing skids Saki and the ruined landing skid crashed to the floor. Rilien had his moment. He pushed the detonator. The building around him bloomed with red lights. An automated voice called out, "Self destruct mechanism employed. Engaging in fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve…" Maeleyn threw herself on top of Saki, trying to pry the evil pink alien out of the suit with her bare hands like Gustav, her weapons stashed in her belt.

"Donatello!" Rilien waved the genius over to him as the countdown continued. For a second Leo had control of the plane on the ground and Donnie's immediate thought was that Rilien would ask for help to the plane, to be taken home, to safety. "Remember I said there'd come a day when I needed you to do something for me?"

"Of course! Here, get on my shell, I'll carry you to the plane!"

"No, not that, my friend." Donnie felt his insides turn to ice, his heartbeat rapid inside his chest. No…not Rilien! Not his friend! "Take her out of here, alive. I want to know my niece kept living in this world, even with what she's become. Give her a good life, Donatello. Help her live it…"

"But professor! We need-"

"Go, Donatello."

"Seven, six, five…"

"C'mon!" Raphael finally ripped Maeleyn off the Shredder, who had cut her left arm in the process and she fought Raphael nearly as much as Saki. Raphael threw her over his shoulder, booking it to the Blackhawk where Splinter and the others had already gathered. Don pushed Leo from the pilot's seat, grasping the control hard, causing the plane to make a sharp upward motion as it wobbled out of the open eat side into the air.

"Four, three, two…" the building voice echoed. It was getting later and later for Rilien to escape with them.

"RILIEN! UNCLE RILIEN!" Maeleyn hung out of the plane, secured only by Raphael as she reached her hand out for him. It was pointless, she knew, but she still wanted him anyways. Her hand couldn't possibly cover that much distance. Leo looked out the plane, seeing Karai and what was left of her followers jump to the ground and beginning to run, probably going to hide in the surrounding waters to fight off the impact, as it was safer than staying on land. Tears leaked from Maeleyn's eyes as she watched her uncle and Gustav bear hug the Shredder around his chest cavity, cutting off Ch'rell's escape.

He looked at her, dead at her, and smiled. He was crying too.

"UNCLE RILIEN DON'T LEAVE ME! UNCLE RILIEN!" Rilien smiled despite his dirty, blood face. His leg, still badly wounded, supported him. She barely caught it as the building counted down the last two numbers. Rilien's right hand, the one pointing palm-up to those that had escaped in the plane, had the pinky, pointer, and thumb finger facing out, his other two fingers folded in between the pinky and pointer finger.

"Two…one…"

It was sign language for 'I love you'.

Don veered the plane away from the building as best he could, the building floors finally collapsing on one another in a great rush of fire and smoke. Maeleyn's sob, the loudest yet, was masked by the explosion that rocked the little plane, sending debris flying in all directions as it fell with a thundering crash. "Shell!" unable to tell where the flying pieces had come from Don tried his best to navigate and avoid all of them. Unfortunately, that was not possible. They'd stayed closer than planned to see what Rilien had been planning, eventually watching him lose his life. It was a great loss.

Though he wished he had time to mourn Donatello had none. The explosion, so close to the already open east wall and the general calamity of an exploding building falling downward had generated loose pieces flying out to attack the Blackhawk. Pieces bounced off the side and into the open belly as Raphael shielded Maeleyn, Mikey deflecting chunks with Leo and Splinter. One of those chunks had hit the rotating blades and the plane began to sputter. Of course turtle luck would have the pieces damage the blades. Flight was quickly becoming hard to attain.

Pulling back hard on the main steering mechanism Don growled. They were still going down! Sparks flew from above as the building pieces continued to batter the blades. In about a minute they would have a crash landing with the ocean.

* * *

_Beep beep! Be-bee-beep! Be-beep! _The boat rocked and Kier almost fell overboard at the force of the building coming down. Jeeters and Kirkland had helped someone take it down from the inside that was for sure. He saw the green bodies pile into the Blackhawk and for a second, felt safe, almost sure that his daughter was among them. When it looked to be safe and well for those in the plane the building exploded outward as well as down, fire eating up the building greedily as the oxygen-fed _woosh_! filled the air before the _BA-BOOM! _hit. The little boat had speed, he'd give it that, Kier shuttled along, sending sea spray up in the air as the ocean rumbled and gurgled around him, sizzling as the pieces fell with sharp _whomps! _into the ocean.

It was like a deadly mine field, and he avoided the falling pieces like a racing game, veering from the left to the right. Almost like _Frogger_, except there were no extra lives, no bonus round, no power-ups, and no cars rocketing towards a little boat with bits of fire accenting them. The Blackhawk, for a second or two, fluttered in the air, hovering up and down. It began to point down, the blades mangled and undoubtedly putting the occupants in a nose dive. It looked graceful, almost weightless as it began its decent but Kier knew Blackhawks were about ten thousand six hundred and twenty-four pounds alone due to structure.

That same structure would cause them to meet the ocean very fast, and cause them to sink to great pressure depths quicker than the body could naturally handle. Zooming alongside the Blackhawk, a mere foot away from the plane, he honked the horn again. Green heads poked down to look at him and he motioned them, unsure if they could see the gesture or not. His curiosity was answered when a turtle with an orange bandanna jumped from the plane, his arms whirling in large circles to give him some landing ease. Kier moved the boat so the young, green lad could land safely in the center of the one-room boat, not too far behind him in the slightly lower pit where the captain stood to man the steering of the boat.

"Man that saved my shell. Thanks dude!" others began to join him. Another one with a purple bandanna, one with a blue bandanna carrying a rat, and one with a red bandanna that had a female mutant. _Female mutant…_Kier, for a second, forgot he was supposed to be manning the steering wheel. The purple-wearing turtle took over, veering the boat sharply to the left as he punched the gas, shooting them out past the blade range of the crashing plane.

"Maeleyn?" he couldn't even hear himself over the whipping wind but he _looked _at her, really _looked a_t her and had no doubt she was his.

"Daddy?" Kier saw the word on her lips. She wiggled out of the red-wearing turtle's arms and launched herself at him. Kier broke down inside. He cried and laughed, clasping his baby to him. She was alive. She had made it.

He loved her no less than when she was human. She was still Maeleyn, still his warrior princess. Kier never let her go as the purple-wearing terrapin piloted the boat back around near the Statue of Liberty. The sunset was just becoming noticeable, reflecting across the blue waters with more orangey-golden colors and they all breathed a sigh of relief. Maeleyn found it odd and lapsed into temporary nostalgia as she looked at the Statue of Liberty, just being highlighted by the glowing morning sun. The contours of a cold statue had never been so beautiful and so awing.

Her journey had first taken her here, months ago, when Rilien helped her escape the underwater lab. She hugged her father tighter, scraping her head affectionately against his scruffy beard. Don shut off the boat and the turtles looked at the man. "Who are you?" Leo asked respectfully as he could, still jostled, like everyone else, that they had come out alive. He was still riled by the loss of Chaplin, Gustav, and Rilien too, giving him mixed emotions.

"My name is Kier Spector."

"Her father…" Raphael looked to Maeleyn, the widest and yet saddest he'd seen her smile in days and nodded to the man. For a minute he felt blank, almost light. He finally met her father. All the past fears he had for her of her family rejecting her was being denied at this very moment. Raph could tell by the look of sheer appreciation and adoration on his hard, but soft face that man didn't care what she looked like. He was just happy to have her, like Raphael.

"Daddy…" Maeleyn whispered into his chin as she tucked her head contently under his. Her fingers tightened in the fabric of his borrowed, smelly clothes. At least she had one family member still left to hold.

"I'm here," he whispered, kissing her hair. "I'm here, and this time I'll stay. I won't go anywhere. Daddy's here for you, Mae."

"Let's get them back to the lair," Leo advised, Donnie nodding.

"Wait here, Mr. Spector," Don suggested. "I'll be back up with the submarine. You too, Master Splinter."

"Sure…" Kier didn't know what to think. Could this turtle have really made a submarine? Raphael gently wrapped Maeleyn's arms around him, worried about her strength level, and told her to take a deep breath before plunging into the water, kicking his strong legs to send them through the tunnels. What originally took hours on her first day of escape, took the turtles about thirty minutes before they emerged in the pond of their home. He stood there in an awkward silence with the rat.

"GUYS!" April shot up happily from the seat, causing Casey to slip and fall in it due to startle, and ran over to them. "How are you? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you need medical attention? One, two, three, okay you have your fingers. Mikey, other hand mister! Oh guys!" she hugged Mikey since he was closest, not caring that her shirt was ruined.

"I was so worried about you! Oh! Big hug!"

"April! April I can't feel my neck!" Mikey groaned. It hurt from being tossed into the beam. She quickly withdrew from the hug.

Don lowered the submarine in a short press of buttons, unhooking it with Leo's help as he went to retrieve the human male and Master Splinter. "Donnie, where are you going?" April was obviously overjoyed but worried that he would be going out so soon.

"I need to get Master Splinter, and Mr. Spector."

"Mr. Spector…Rilien?"

"No," Leo's eyes grew dark, solemn as he shook his head. April immediately felt guilty for speaking the name. Leo only took on that look, just like Donatello did with Kirby, when someone passed in the line of duty.

"My father." Maeleyn corrected her, a look of hurt evident on her face. The memory of losing Rilien, of his last goodbye tormenting her quite well. April wrapped Maeleyn in a hug and the girl cried. Harder than when she'd met her father for the first time since the mess broke out. Hugging April, getting a feminine hug of softness, made her cry as hard as she did.

She'd often wondered what it felt like to be hugged by a mother figure, and this was probably as close as she would get. It was a sweet, sad feeling. Thirty minutes later Donatello came back up with Kier Spector and Master Splinter. "April, Casey, may I introduce you to Kier Spector…" Donatello gave a slight wave of his hand and the man who looked very rough nodded. His facial hair was grungy, dark blonde, and he smelled of sweat and age. The adults said 'hello' and Kier partook in a shower with great respect and continued blessings as Donatello and April patched Maeleyn up.

When he came out, dressed in the old clothes he'd found, he gave a weak smile to his daughter, holding her hand with his good one as Don addressed the wound from the window of the old shack. He laced his fingers with hers, squeezing them tight, and nudged her happily. He was home. Their eyes burned, and their bodies ached. Bed sounded all too wonderful. The clock on Don's computer was just short of three A.M. and they all gave sleepy sighs.

They weren't sure how well sleep would come, given what they'd seen and what had happened. Unusual for the turtle brothers, they began to amass pillows and blankets from their individual room, pushing the coffee table back towards the collection of TV's Don had wired together. Splinter smiled as he reclined in the chair, resting his bones. His sons threw their masks, belts, and knee pads in a head, weapons hanging off the couch or piled there, and snuggled into the cocoon of blankets right next to each other. Leo and Raph on the outsides, Donnie and Mikey on the inside.

Maeleyn pushed the weapons into the left part of the couch, slipping behind them to lay on the right side, just above Raphael. She dropped her hand softly to stroke his unmasked face and curled up, resting her head on her arms. Here she could be at peace, even with trouble, and sleep, knowing her family was no longer in danger. Kier rubbed his face and stifled a yawn. They looked so cute, those turtle kids, still obviously children by some respect but hardened, wise, like adults.

Parking a seat in the chair adjacent from the fatherly rat Kier blinked sleepily, slowly, watching the warriors rest. April and Casey turned softly, being as quiet as they could. Master Splinter, Maeleyn, the turtles, and even the newly-arrived Mr. Spector found sleep within five minutes. They could only guess how hard the fight was this time around, but knew the sleep was well deserved. April took a picture, smiling. "That one's going in the album," she told Casey. "But c'mon, we'll let them rest."

"Right behind you, babe." they left unheard in the elevator, making it to street level in silence as they walked home to the antique shop in the glowing morning while the city still slept; unaware of what mayhem had occurred. Unlocking the shop April finally let herself yawn. Worrying about her 'family' was probably almost as energy-absorbing as the fighting they had done. The pair slept on the shop floor, inhaling the sweet, calming scent of old relics and each other.

No other bed could be as comfortable.

* * *

The shop bell gave a merry tinkle, rousing April from her sleep. Blinking her sleepy green eyes she absently patted her messy red hair into a neat bun, standing wobbly. She stepped out of the loop Casey's arms had made around her body and went to investigate. Had she locked the door? She did…didn't she? April was unsure…the return was so early!

Regardless of if she had or hadn't she was sure nothing would be stolen. She and Casey had slept curled up with one another in view of the shop door so his muscle mass alone would've scared thieves. It must've been the delivery boy, because on her counter nearest the cash register was a box. April gave a dull hum of curiosity as she drew close to the box.

**2nd Time Around antique shop**

**TO: Maeleyn Spector**

**From: Rilien Spector and Camilla. **

_That's impossible! _She thought. Leo had told her he died in action. So how…? April analyzed the box a little closer. It had been post-dated for this day. The thought made her shiver. Had Rilien known beforehand he would die, that he would die today? Some people, in a rare moment of 'higher power' could know those kinds of things, but it was rare.

Though it was post-dated for today the contents of it had been packaged almost two and a half weeks ago. April tucked the box away under the counter, staring at the clock on her wall that read eight A.M. she'd give the boys a little more time to rest. It was already driving her crazy, though. What was in that box?


	20. Chapter 20

Enigma

**AN: Thanks to **DieselPhoenix **and **Scribe of Turesa **for reviewing the previous chapter. This is, in fact, the last chapter of **_Enigma_**, I hope you all have enjoyed the ride. A big, huge thank you goes to all that have reviewed the story (**Candlelit1, Eskimo-Otter, SirenSerenade, Backseat Writer, **the writer named "**Al**"**_**,**_writestyle**, and **Hyperactive kitty**) for the heartfelt, inspiring, supporting reviews. This story probably wouldn't be much without those gracious comments. I hope that you, most of all, along with any new readers I may attain will enjoy the sequel story **_Nirvana _**just as much.**

**Enjoy the finale. It may be written in an odd style but this is a very personal way to close the chapter for Maeleyn, it represents healing, new chapters of life, realistic methods of coping, and the closeness one never expects to find in people God didn't directly give them as family.**

_We sold the house in New Jersey, and it actually went pretty well…I guess the people in the community knew we wanted to rid ourselves of the ghosts at last. Someone named Nestor James bought it but we had some families from the neighborhood send money just to wish us well since it was a large move. Total change of scenery and whatnot, but anyways…dad ended up purchasing something in Manhattan so we could stay close to the guys. We're family now…_

Maeleyn gave a small groan, rubbing her right hand that held the pen. Learning to write with three fingers had been hard but since the last stand fiasco at Shredder's tower nearly two weeks ago writing had been all she wanted to do. Maybe it was a reflex in regards to her human self; back when she was human, and when she was troubled (before Jezebelle went missing) she would write pages upon pages, just to get it all out of her. The pen seemed to do nothing but grind on the bone of her "thumb" as she wrote. For the time being she was taking a break, blowing softly on the drying ink as she collected her thoughts for the remaining time mandated for writing.

April stared at her softly, almost blankly, with her arms folded across her chest. It killed her to know, to hide the box, but Maeleyn wasn't ready. She wasn't the only one undergoing therapeutic writing, either. Kier and Splinter had convinced all of them to write, and Kier went out to buy them diaries for the occasion. Splinter snuck topside the first day of writing and bought them a second one; his explicit instructions were to fill one up with how they felt since meeting Maeleyn up to the point of the fight in Shredder's stronghold, and the second could be used daily, for things unrelated to the matter.

The three adults (and even Casey who worked on the sidelines with Raphael to convince him to write despite the inability to write as eloquently as Donatello, or descriptively as Michaelangelo) had determined one diary for the Maeleyn story was good. It would take just one book, maybe, to wring all the residual emotions out of them all. It would put all the ghosts in the past and let them live in peace at last.

"Keep writing," April had moved from the chair, no longer a pale-faced statue with watching eyes, and sat softly on the bed in her room beneath the streets of Manhattan, helping Maeleyn work the cramp out of her right hand. "You don't know how important it is to get this out of you…I know if I had been through the things you had…well, I'm not that strong, and you can't even begin to realize how much I admire you for that strength, the will to survive. Maeleyn…the fact that you're here, alive, is just amazing. Especially after the people that have been hunting you. You need to do this for yourself, to give yourself closure." Maeleyn tried not to cry again. Whatever words April had to say in the past two weeks were sweet, and soft, they brought tears to her eyes. Originally Maeleyn hated the redhead, finding her too overprotective of the boys, too old for them, and a myriad of other things but now, more than ever, she found her to be like a mother figure. Just like she had been for the guys.

True she'd never known her mother but April was acting in her will, she thought. April was being the shoulder to cry on, one that absolutely couldn't be male just based on that mother-daughter need. The tears slipped out of Maeleyn's dark eyes as she looked down at the floor, fighting the sobbing hysterics, and, oddly enough, smiling. This was nice…this is probably what it felt like to hold her real mom. Really that's all she ever wanted, to hold her and hear how her mother loved her, how proud she was of her.

"Take a few minutes and relax, we'll extend the thirty minutes a bit. Big breath, deep breath…good. Better now?" Maeleyn wiped her own eyes and nodded numbly. The two weeks had been crazy and more emotional for her than any other she's experienced yet. One minute she was happy, content and loving the fact she was alive, and then she looked at the burnt, ink-stained stripe of skin running almost perfectly along her spine in the mirror. The burnt skin that would never heal because the exposed muscle and blood itself was stained with hot ink beneath it brought back with it a reminder of what had happened. Emotions followed.

Maeleyn picked up the pen again, the words consuming her mind though she refused to speak them. Writing seemed to be the only release…after all, eventually her mouth would get tired and could one really understand the verbal reiteration of a story they didn't physically experience? Even her own father couldn't imagine what it felt like to be raped…to feel that violation, that fear, the panic, going through her at the moment –but if she wrote it, he might be able to understand from an envisioning point.

…_and we will always be family. Nothing will change that._

_Months ago I was with my uncle, enjoying life. In a simple few days I was thrust into a new world, made a mutant, a stranger to the world I once knew and to the person I once was entirely. Days and weeks meshed together with the single thought of freedom always on my mind…my uncle helped me attain that at the cost of his own captivity. It was odd, almost criminal, to live safely among others who were like me, yet unique from me, underneath the very city I'd come to in hopes of attending the college. They taught me not to categorize myself; that what is "human" and what is "mutant" all depends on perspective._

_This same reasoning probably saved me. It made me quit trying to classify myself, made me quit wanting to be human and quit seeing this body as nothing but a bother when it's actually saved me and helped me. My tail has helped me fight in battle, the shell I once had deflected possibility of minor back wounds, and the dry skin I have now is actually thicker than my human skin. What parts were changed in texture on my body actually serve as protecting parts as well. I'm lucky to be alive…and I thank my uncle, my sensei, and the "family" that adopted me for showing me why I should appreciate myself._

_I was a rape victim, and I endured. I may feel dirty to have been violated, but I am strong. I was beaten in that rape, cut, rubbed raw in some places, but I stood. In the hands of my enemy I stood in cuffs, at mercy that would surely be death and death alone, but I lived. It takes a warrior princess to look this good and kick so much ass._

She couldn't help but smile at the last line. That would close out the diary page for the day. April's pale human hand on the top of the page, the tapping nails gently playing along the cream white pages of the writing diary. Maeleyn shut it, noting the time must be up. April would probably go off to monitor one of the others. It was very weird but a welcome exercise, after writing, when they were all done, each of them would walk to the dojo and be able to meditate peacefully.

Or, without a word, they would just hug each other. Bless the fact they were family. Alive. Together. _Sane_.

Her fingers brushed the pages as she shut the rich maroon leather cover, and she gave a small sigh. There was one thing Maeleyn had yet to write about, and it ate at her constantly. Slash and the details of her rape (she'd skirted around it, but had not yet _written _about it), from her point of view, had been the last four days worth of writing, and each night when she went to sleep she thought of the immense bleeding between her thighs that occurred. A spiritual feeling raced back to her when she was lost in the terror of those nightmares before one of them would come to check on her, or wake her (sometimes Raphael, sometimes her father) and she'd spring up drenched in a cold sweat. As if indulging in her good memories, the hope, her stomach would flutter and tighten when they woke her.

In that sensation a wordless feeling, reassurance, called to the very core of her. There had been something inside of her. It had been taken, but it most certainly had been there. Maeleyn knew a piece of her was missing, and that feeling, the intuition, was often the source of her dismal smiles as of late, besides the remains of Rilien being found, his funeral, and the fact she couldn't attend until nighttime with the others. Slash…Bishop…had taken something from her, and she would never get it back.

When she finally pulled out of her emotional dwelling April was no longer in her room. Gingerly she pushed off the bed, padding out of her room and passing Mikey's with a tiny smile. The youngest Hamato male was writing in his obnoxious, adorable orange diary with his tongue sticking out, intense concentration possessing him. Her father, with his newly shaven face accented by the new, clean clothes, smiled at her. In both Spectors, in everyone, the burial of Rilien Spector was fresh and sharp, stinging.

"I love you, honey." Kier kissed the top of her head, holding her close. Subconsciously he was carefully about wrapping his arms directly across her back as he used to. The ink stain haunted him. She must've gone through so much pain…and he wasn't there. Whether he liked it or not, she'd become a woman.

In the worst way, but here she stood. Strong, wise, and sculpted into an even sturdier, braver warrior princess by what had happened. No…warrior princess sounded too childish to address the maturity, the sheer endurance she'd displayed when he was pulled in so many directions by the deception-filled madness. She was a warrior. His warrior.

* * *

Raphael was the last one into the dojo where Splinter sat, waiting on his "five" children. April watched him go with her emerald eyes and finally looked to Kier who was also watching the dojo, perched crookedly and quite boyishly on the arm of the red armchair. At last the young—well, she couldn't really call them young anymore, could she? They had survived things that no mere nineteen year old could easily handle—terrapin went into the dojo and shut the rice paper door without a sound. Now she could talk to him, as he was the father of the person with a delivered package in her shop. Though she was a legal adult April felt it best to run the idea of finally giving that delivery to Maeleyn, Kier might have an idea as to what Rilien would've put in it.

"Kier…" April started, looking at the man who drew his lazy, dreamy eyes off the closed rice paper door. "Two weeks ago—I know I shouldn't have hid it this long but she's been making great progress in the therapeutic writing—a package was post dated for the day you all returned. It was from Rilien…to Maeleyn. Can she have it?"

"Wha…what?" Kier couldn't catch his breath. From Rilien? An eerie shiver triggered the goose bumps on his arms. How could someone know the day they were to die? Sometimes people did, he'd seen a few people during various stationed times on land get hit in a small rebellion or figure out they had been poisoned, say to him "I'm going to die." when he looked at him, saw the glazing of their eyes and the fierceness of them, he could believe it.

Rilien had always been more spiritual than he, maybe he saw it coming. Working under the Shredder certainly was a good excuse to give him the feeling of a short, ticking clock. Kier thought back to the collar, his eyes bolting shut and tight for a few minutes. Yes…there was a chilling feeling, and in that chilling feeling, in a second, it's as if you hear a soothing angel speak "_you're going to die…" _and take the fear away. Almost like the five stages of death and dying in psychology, once a moment like that happens suddenly the textbook stuff makes sense.

Such experiences brought new connotations to the bad words and thus new appreciations for _avoiding _or even _living through _the events that made the connotation worse. "I don't know what it is," admitted April, "I wouldn't dare open it, but I wanted to know if you think she's ready for it."

"How have you been able to hide it for two weeks?"

"I own an antique shop cluttered with everything under the sun, it's not hard. I just think—pardon me for the cliché—a woman knows. And I think it's time to let Maeleyn see this. We've all been tormented by something because of all this. Me by that box, her by her own memories, and the others by theirs. It's time to give someone, maybe all of us, some closure. There could be answers in there…"

"Serene used to think there were things only women could sense, too. Mmm…I guess I've got nothing better to do than to trust you. I don't feel very intuitive or spiritual at the moment. As odd as it sounds I still feel drained at the thought of…about everything…"

"Then we're agreed? Yes? I can show her?"

"Yes, yes you may. If Maeleyn comes out tell her I went to the house. I don't want to disturb their meditation session. I need make sure the new alarm system works. I fiddled with it the other day after the lazy techs wouldn't show their ass, so I'm going to go test it."

"I'll let her know."

"Thank you, Ms. O'Neil."

"Mrs. Jones," she whispered to him, even though the others were hiding in the dojo. "We haven't told them the date yet, but it's Mrs. Jones. We're having a formal one the family. The informal one was last Tuesday."

"Sneaky…"

"Indeed, but we didn't feel the need to bombard them with a formal wedding right off. At least now they're well into healing. Tuesday was just small and quiet; we wanted to let them keep resting."

"I'm off. Take care, Ms. O'Neil."

"You too, Mr. Spector."

* * *

Raphael paused, the ink pen in his hands. His large fingers were besmeared in ink where he would absently brush the page, press down too hard, or forget the ink was wet on the upper lines of his current page. His amber-yellow eyes looked to his doorway when the familiar steps of another brother passed. On the one hand he felt pressed for time (he was taking the longest, that had been the third brother to pass his door) but felt relaxed as he continued to pour out every bare emotion he had into the book. It was really helping. And April had assured him it was okay; he could write until he fell asleep on it, he and Maeleyn may have more to write about than any of the others.

Her voice, though soft and sensitive when she assured him, was catty and wise. Like she knew they had done things Splinter would not approve of, and one thing in particular her dad may kill him for. Raph stared down at the page, trying to pull the words from his head. Already the diary was packed with New York slang, his own euphemisms, and a fair amount of vulgarity. He jumped around from scene to scene daily, but like two days ago he was back on the topic of getting to the final floor in the Shredder's stronghold, and five pages in.

He knew what he wanted to write next, and his hand shook. How would he say it? How could he get anyone to understand? Slowly the pen bit down on the paper, and he dragged it along the lines.

_I remember bein' in the corridor right before the Shredder's personal room and there was just…this feelin'. I was so worried about her; she was the only thing on my mind. I couldn't help thinkin' that maybe I was too late and that she was gone. That wouldn't have gone well if it was true, I don't think I'd be the same if I lost her. Not after what we've been through. She's the only one of our kind…ever._

_And Maeleyn's different. Not because she has boobs, not because she's somethin' of a reptile (maybe a little) but she's not the typical dame. She's a bitch, but I love it. Saucy attitude, bad mouth…what can't a guy love about a chick that throws shit back at him? That's my girl, and I wasn't about to let Shredder take her from me, we've been through too much._

_My life in general, then life with her, starting from our first dojo fight, kept going through my mind when we finally hit that corridor. I made a promise to myself to show 'that bitch' she couldn't trump me back when we first met, that I wasn't going to fall for any of her tricks when she told me I had a fat head behind that bandanna. It was on then. Raphael Hamato doesn't go down easily, and if she wanted to play 'hunter and the hunted', if she wanted to seduce me, I wasn't going to make it easy._

_Since pissing people off is my talent I wanted to get under her skin, and I mean get under it _good_. That same annoying determination actually pulled us together. My own personal thoughts, the ones no one ever heard, circled too when I was on my chest shooting towards the rice paper door. It was like I was givin' myself a pep talk, or calling on the full 'Raphael' brigade to get me through that door._

_The screams drove me crazy, I'll never forget them. They'll haunt me until I'm old, shriveled, and layin' belly up. Before I hit the door I remember somethin' more than just the adrenaline. It was like a voice, it sounded like me, sayin' something I knew I couldn't deny. I was doin' more than savin' her that night, or at least I think I was._

_I mean…it wouldn't surprise me if she was…had been…her smell had changed. True when we fooled around it was just a half-week into mating season but still. A guy can tell these things, y'know? Women don't think we look at 'em but you can tell stuff changes, especially when they run at you about to claw your eyes out. She'd changed, her smell had sweetened and softened, it wasn't as prominent, and the milk half of the scent was stronger, sweeter._

_At that point, when I was on my side in the Shredder's room, I couldn't help thinking _I'm a father, I know I'm a father _and no little voice told me otherwise. I really think I had been. I would've loved the kid. I may be hard on Mikey but him being my brother has taught me how to handle kids. I'd be sweet with 'em, and hell, we've seen enough commercials to know what to do._

_Plus after we visited Usagi's dimension Don wanted to make sure we knew the basics in case Usagi's dimension had lady turtles. He has no faith in us, really, brainiac has none. It's almost insulting. Now that I'm hooked on the father thing it's probably going to stay here. I like thinkin' that I had a kid. _

_Hell, I even knew what I would name him, and actually I don't want a Renaissance name. Most guy Renaissance names sound kind of fruity, anyways, or they're like Rembrandt, which is toothpaste. Aisoku, it's Japanese for 'beloved son' (haven't thought of a chick name yet. I always thought I'd have a little mouthy son-of-a-bitch aggravatingly amazing son to be a chip off the ol' shell). Shell…she lost hers. That freaked the shit out of me too, worse than the screaming. _

_If he could do that to her, if there was that much blood on her, what would it be like if w_e_ got de-shelled? Never mind…I don't want to think about it. Geez…what else do I have to write about? Definitely not putting what happened in the room in here. I've spent four pages on the Shredder…_

_I guess all I got left to do now is go into the dojo with my bros and be happy to have 'em. We've been through hell, and what with this reflective writing crap April has us doing (because, let's face it, a mutant family can't go in to get a real counselor or nothin') I really don't want to write anymore. Makes me feel too emotional…too vulnerable._

_Raphael out. I'm parking my happy ass on a tatami mat and going to punch Mikey in the shoulder for shits and giggles._

_

* * *

_

Splinter groaned. What was supposed to be a calm, reflective meditation hour that started when Raphael walked in quickly turned into a family dog pile-tussle match he hadn't seen in years. It was just like the time he followed them to the surface on their first venture and saw them playing in a dumpster to see who would be 'King of the Trash'. "Bonzai!" Mikey threw himself back on top of Raph who had Don in a headlock and the elder brother fell to the floor by the sheer addition of weight caused by his little brother. Leo lunged at Raphael with a laugh, freeing Donatello from the loving but crushing headlock, it started another four-turtle ball rolling across the dojo floor.

Seconds after, when they'd all crashed and tried to jam their fingers into each others' pressure points to see who would give first Mikey started pulling bandannas and turning them around. "'Ey man, Leo keep ya fingers to yourself!" Raph swatted the air after his elder brother skewed his mask to the right, stuck one green finger in the empty eyehole, and spun it around one hundred and eighty degrees, leaving his little brother blind. They were all blind now. Splinter grinned; he hadn't seen them smile like this in years.

Big and bright, full of joy and hope. With all of them being blind the tackling game quickly turned into a blind hide, seek, and tackle game. Splinter gave a small laugh at the sight of them drawing closer to one another, and then away, waiting for each other to make an identifying noise. The rice paper door slid open and Maeleyn stepped in after going to check on April and to find out where her father went, "Guys?".

"Maeleyn!" Mikey grinned despite not being able to see and threw his arms out for her to join them. Leo smacked him upside the head, sliding an arm around his shoulders and rubbing his knuckles affectionately across the top of his head.

"Ow, ow! Leo, dude! I give!" Raphael pulled his mask off his head, finding it easier than readjusting it. He walked silently over to Maeleyn. She had a rare, deep look on her face. It spoke of fear, trust, and intuition, spiritually connected (for the moment) to powers higher than themselves.

"Babe, you okay? You feelin' better?" he was still cautious, all of them were, about her back. She still showed twitching, wincing pain at direct contact on the tender flesh. Nonetheless she wound his arms around her back, wrapping her fingers on his wrists at her sides.

"Yeah," she smiled softly. "The writing helps. Listen…April wanted me to visit her and. Well, I don't know, I just want you to come with me."

"Well sure, I'll go wit'cha. What'd you do, leave a hairbrush or somethin'?"

"No. She said she has a package for me."

"What the shell? Yeah…yeah I'll go with you."

"I want to go too!" Mikey waved his hand and broke away from Leo, jumping up and down.

"Sorry Mike, but April told me to bring Raph only." she laced her fingers with his and they walked out slowly, quietly. Raphael had a million questions going through his head. What was it that she could only bring him? Why had April gone through the trouble of leaving the lair and going to her shop to stay with whatever it was when she could've just brought it down here with her? Through her wrist Raphael could feel her heart pulse erratically and he stopped, up to his ankles wading through sewer junk to look at her.

She turned to look at him, staring up at the terrapin that still had no mask on. Maeleyn loved it when he didn't wear his mask. His eyes were sharper on his bare face, and more alive with honey hues. He truly had a captivating color. "Look," Raphael grabbed her hands, looking down into the sewer almost ashamedly, "I know we haven't talked about it much, you know, what happened...but I'm here for you, babe, and I ain't leavin."

"Thanks Raph…" Maeleyn found herself to be hugging more now than ever. Just Raphael's voice was a welcome comfort. She was beginning to think just writing and not talking would drive her crazy, but Raphael wanted to talk about it, he wanted to clear it all up. Beat all those ghosts down and away, for good.

"I love you, Mae…and no one's gonna take you away from me. I'll beat somebody's ass over you, and not just because you're a chick or that I think you need the extra help some days but because you're my girl. My mate…" he nuzzled her nose with his, bumped it a little, and gave a small, intimate churr. Regular turtles may mate with everything and then forget about it but he was different, evolved, and he was staying right where he was.

"I love you too, Raph. And just for the record, I only beat the Hunter's ass over you and I'll only beat your ass when you need it, and it's because I love you."

"Right, not because you like it or nothin'." he joked, slipping his green fingers onto her asparagus green face. She smiled up at him, a full, genuine smile he hadn't seen in days.

"Never said I didn't like it." Maeleyn breathed against his lips before kissing him. Passion he'd been too afraid to give for two weeks spilled out, and Raphael limited it to kissing, knowing her back still hurt from Shredder ripping off her shell. Maeleyn's claw-like fingers dug into his biceps, her tail wagging back and forth before hooking behind his left leg and pullin him close. She had her own growling noises, noises that turned Raphael hard behind his plastron.

"Now that we're…finished…" Maeleyn was steady smoothing her wild hair down. Raphael grinned wolfishly, giving her a pat on the ass. Her tail smacked his hand and he withdrew it with a small, happily dry laugh. Maybe they were back on the path of recovery after all, putting it behind them.

* * *

April was waiting on them both. Casey was already upstairs in anything took a turn for the worst. None of them knew what was in the box."Hey Raph, Maeleyn, thanks for coming you two!" April saw that look in her eyes. She wanted to ask.

"Raph could you help Casey with the kitchen pipes please? I know I'd usually get Don to do it but you have better luck talking with Casey…he's being stubborn. And I know Don taught you to do_ something_ if you can tune up that outrageous death-cycle of yours."

"Sure thing, Ape. I'll get on it. The knuckle head's probably ripping out your drain or something." he didn't want to ask about whatever it was she had for Maeleyn in case it was an embarrassing girl thing guys would regret seeing. Her asking for him to help Casey was utter bullshit, and he knew it. She knew he knew it, but he'd respect it and play along. April and Maeleyn listened to him walk up the stairs to her living space and blew out a sigh. The redhead squatted behind the counter and dug behind two boxes before pulling out the post-dated package.

Maeleyn's hands closed around the sides of the box almost dreamily and April bit her knuckle. "I don't know what's in it so I'm going to just, um, go dust. I don't want to invade your privacy or anything." she all but ran when her hand had the duster to go to the back of the locked shop and distract herself. Slowly Maeleyn opened the box.

She began to cry, she couldn't help it. The black accented the whitish-gray still image too perfectly for her to have any doubt, for her to not have a reason to cry. She had been pregnant. They'd taken a child from her. Lying around the outside of the sonogram were sticky notes, and on them, Rilien's hand writing. Her tears blurred her vision, and she blinked out the latest tears before trying to read them.

_Wee-wee behind his leg! _accompanying a smiley face. Maeleyn gave a tiny laugh and wiped her eyes before looking at the picture again. The little fetus was curled up, his tiny, beautiful legs drawn up near his chest which allowed the long tail (_he has your tail!_) to curl up past his toes, floating serenely in her womb at the time. A shell (_a shell!_) was already growing on his back, small, but the grooves could be seen forming in the calcification. Unfortunately the sonogram couldn't say what color he was…would've been.

Maeleyn tried not to think that she had lost him. She liked to think he was a special treasure. Scribbled on the white bottom of the photo was a little more information, but in hand writing different from Rilien's. This handwriting was neat, medium-sized, and had out-curling stems on letters like 'n' and 'd'. She lifted up the photo and inside the box on the Styrofoam worms were a few pieces of folded paper…letters.

Absently she reached for them but her eyes stayed trained on the last little bit of information beneath the picture.

**Gender: Male**

**Name: ?**

**DNA: Slash/Maeleyn/Raphael Hamato**

**Age: 4 days, 20 hours, 18 minutes.**

She didn't even want to think of Slash's DNA being in her child, but it made sense. Maeleyn flushed, wiping her eyes as she laughed again. So…Raph had gotten lucky the first time, hm? By her own calculations the little one had been conceived in Bishop's base so…the girly handwriting had to have been Camilla's! _Oh Rilien…you gooey nerd…you had something going after all. No wonder why you liked to spend so much time in the kitchen…_

Maeleyn grabbed the first note, which was in Rilien's handwriting.

_Dear Maeleyn, _

_Camilla finally showed me…isn't he beautiful? I'm sorry. The little tyke actually had Slash's DNA from the first night at Area Fifty-One but he was yours…unfortunately Slash's reintroduction caused a violent miscarriage. I wish you peace._

_Love,_

_Rilien Spector._

Camilla must've injected with her with some of his sperm while she slept. Or she had been drugged. It sounded possible, what with Camilla being a handler and all, plus that would explain her blackouts. _But how did the baby get so large, so fast? _she wondered. In the box was another letter, a small scrap of paper, and a small flash drive.

The second letter actually explained—in DNA jargon Don would get more clearly than she—how the baby came to be so big, so soon. She grinned, no longer crying, able to dry her tears by the awe and beauty she felt blooming in her chest for her unnamed boy. Rilien must've known she'd be so curious after a confirmation of indeed being pregnant. Basically, weeding out all the processes they used, Rilien and Camilla had determined Slash's steroid-based mutant DNA accelerated Maeleyn and Raphael's binding DNA because it had leeched on and fused with Raphael's. Maeleyn could wait no longer; she had to show this to Raph.

Hiding in the bathroom until Casey left, excited about how he killed a spider (which April hated) and overjoyed that he'd successfully fixed the pipes, he ran downstairs to tell her. She finally came into the kitchen, so quiet she scared herself. "Raph?" her voice was light, small.

"Babe? What's wrong? What did April have to show-"

"If we had a baby, what would you call it?"

"What?"

"I said if we had a baby what would you call it?" she hugged the photo behind her laced fingers, pressing it to her chest.

"Babe, don't play. We don't even know if we can do that…"

"Answer the question Raph!" Maeleyn all but whispered. She needed this question answered from him, if not to save her sanity. If she could keep this photo, give him a name, an identity, she could give that missing piece of herself an identity. Then she would no longer be a broken puzzle, missing pieces. She would be herself, without a doubt.

"I…I would've named him Aisoku. It…it means beloved son in Japanese."

"You didn't have any girl names?"

"I never saw me havin' a daughter. Figured it'd be a boy." Raph shrugged. "Is that…babe? Babe? C'mon don't fuck around with me here! Did Rilien…did we really?" Raphael bounced around like a hyper child. Almost like a kid going 'let me see! Let me see!' as he tried to wiggle through a crowd and see a spectacle. She couldn't help but laugh, new tears slipping from her eyes as she unfolded her fingers and twisted her left palm around to show him.

"My god…" Raph shook like a leaf. "Shit…this is…he's beautiful…" he hit his knees, staring at the picture, not wanting to miss any inch of the tiny whitish-gray body surrounded by black. It was really true, sticky notes all around it. "My son…our son. We can really make kids. This is fucking fantastic! Babe this is amazing!" Maeleyn knelt down to sit with him, her legs together and off to the side, giving her a lean, relaxed look as she pulled her tail out beside her legs, giving him a soft, close-lipped smile.

Raphael grabbed her face with one hand and kissed her cheek firmly. He was insanely happy! "We gotta…we gotta show this to my bros! I mean, they can be uncles!" the last thing Maeleyn wanted to do was bring him down but she had to poke that happy bubble. After all, they didn't actually have him.

"Raph…I think that'll hurt more than it will make them happy. We lost him…"

"It's gonna hurt like hell, it _always _will, it did when I thought about how much you bled, when I saw you. I mean, I didn't think you were pregnant but I guess I kind of knew…still! Babe, this is always going to hurt but he's showing us we can have kids! I'd like, maybe in the future, to honor the one we lost by giving you one you can hold at night. That I can help walk across the floor…"

She couldn't believe her ears! He still wanted to try? Even though he'd lost his first son? That hole in her was filled now, with a name and with the energetic love of her boyfriend who failed to balk at the loss. "Babe I'm so happy I can't even…shit, I don't know. This is amazing. I love you. I love you so much." Raphael wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hard. His whole world had gotten brighter almost instantly. _I can have kids, _he thought, _we can give Master Splinter grandkids! And have more Hamatos! _

"Let me go get the box and we can go home and show the guys…" Maeleyn whispered against his face, nuzzling him. Raph nodded, literally shaking with excitement and anticipation.

"Yeah," he nodded, rubbing his sweaty palms on his kneepads, "yeah. Go get the box and we can show the family. A baby. Our baby. Our baby…my kid…" Maeleyn laughed, wiping her eyes again to make sure the tear residue was gone and the trails erased before getting up to retrieve the box. April was nowhere to be seen, and Maeleyn thought Casey had gotten a hold of her. Before stowing the picture back in the box she rearranged the two letters she'd read. The scrap of paper and the flash drive remained untouched. Curiously she picked the flash drive up.

It was small and red, glossy. On the side in _really _tiny handwriting only Rilien could pull off when in a hurry was the message '_for the family album'_. Grinning, sad but happy, Maeleyn tucked the flash drive back in the sea of Styrofoam. She grabbed the scrap of paper next. On it was a childish nursery rhyme pertaining to cats, why she couldn't imagine, but the image of the little girl holding the kitten made her smile.

**I love little pussy,  
Her coat is so warm,  
And if I don't hurt her,  
She'll do me no harm.**

So I'll not pull her tail,  
Or rive her away,  
But pussy and I  
Together will play.

She will sit by my side,  
And I'll give her some food,  
And she'll like me because  
I'm gentle and good.

Hands slipped around her waist, and a cold snout played on the nape of her neck. Maeleyn smiled, wrapping her hands around his. "Let's go home, Raph. I want to see my family."

* * *

When all was quiet in the lair that night, the darkness safely blanketing hard sleeping turtles and rat who had partied, cried, and cheered at the news of potential nieces, nephews, and grandchildren, Maeleyn sat to write in the second diary. It was the one her father had bought her for the 'everyday thought'. A new pen in hand, one that would only be used for this diary, for this entry, she began to write.

_At one point, I thought I would be incomplete because I knew—whether by intuition or just pure emotional turmoil resulting from fighting for ME since I've been mutated—something's been missing, especially after mine and Raph's special time in the room. Tonight I realized what it was. It was the unconfirmed bond between a mother and her young, one that was cut short. Now, with this box of gifts—beautiful, invaluable gifts—my uncle gave me (god rest his soul) I know who I am. There is no question to solve anymore._

_The puzzle is complete._

_I am Maeleyn. I 'm a mutant, I'm a woman. I'm a Hamato. _


End file.
